My Soul To Take
by ryoku1
Summary: He has a small window that lets in sunlight, and allows him to look at what remains of the moon in the evenings. It is nice, in its own right, but he feels like a foreigner on earth now. Spoilers for the end of Season 2.
1. Chapter 1

He has a small window that lets in sunlight, and allows him to look at what remains of the moon in the evenings. It is nice, in its own right, but he feels like a foreigner on earth now. The days are too bright, the sky too colorful, and the night is not dark enough, it is not as absolute as the ground below his feet anymore. It's strange to think that he misses the instability that space provided him.

The heating and cooling systems are surprisingly good. His cell is warm in the winter, and cool in the summer, and it doesn't make a sound. The temperature simply is, and he can only know that it is different from the outside temperature by the small window. There are palm trees outside, and if he listens, he can hear the waves of the ocean, so maybe it is the cooling system that works better than the heating. It snowed once, just the once, and he cried to see it. He never feels the chill that permeates space. The emptiness of the cold is something he remembers lies in the deepest layers of hell, but Slain has always found space to be the coldest place in existence. He also does not feel the heat and grit of Mar's sand against his skin.

He has access to books. He doesn't get to pick which books, but he does get books. He reads one of them, once. He then promptly throws it against the wall when he reads something about 'Rayleigh scattering'. It remains on the far side of the cell, and he never retrieves it, neither do the guards, and it remains there in perpetuity. They bring other books, but he doesn't touch them.

The food is better than anything he could have eaten on Mars, or even in one of the landing castles, or, it would be better, if he was eating it. At first, he did. He meekly ate what was given to him, expecting that each meal would be his last. As the time passes, day after day after week after month, he stops. The threat of execution which seemed inevitable, now seems like it will never come. He remembers, once, that his father had talked about how the Earth should abolish the death penalty. He hopes that isn't what happened, but he stops eating anyway. He will save them the trouble if they don't have the nerve for it. This works most of the time, but it is often in a moment of weakness, after weeks of not eating, that he grudgingly eats something, and regrets it. The process repeats again. The doctor that comes when the guards call him, threatens that if he doesn't eat, they'll put him on a drip, or that the guards will force him to eat. He doesn't listen to them, and it only strengthens his resolve.

The guards like to watch television down the hall in their office. They leave the door open, and he can hear their laughter, and the chatter of their shows. He can never make out what they're saying, but he doesn't care. He wishes he couldn't hear it at all. Mars did not have television like earth does. Maybe they will now, but they didn't before. Television was for important things: declarations of war, campaigns against humans, military victories, patriotism, and talking heads spewing hateful ramblings about Earth. It also only aired for a few hours a day, not like the 24 hour dribble that they have on earth. It's hard to decide which type of broadcast he hates more.

One of the guards prefers music to the television, but he only works part time, which means he is only around twice a week. Those are better days, because music is so much better than television. He doesn't even like the music that guard plays, but it's better than the television, and it's better than silence. He thinks one of the guards has noticed that he likes music, but he seems to have not said anything. Slaine imagines that he would be allowed a radio, if he asked or if the guard mentioned his thoughts. Neither of those things happen.

Some of the friendlier guards try to talk with him, but he ignores them most of the time. He doesn't want anything to do with them. The doctor also talks to him, asks questions, but he doesn't answer those either. That in no way means he doesn't use his voice. Some nights, he screams until he can't anymore, and he's horse for days after. It's an even better excuse not to speak.

Kaizuka visits every other Thursday. It is an ordeal. He rarely knows what day of the week it is, but he can always tell a Thursday from the others, by how the guards act. The mumble and grumble and they shuffle around more than normal. The first time, he doesn't know what is going on, and he expects that execution he is suppose to get, so he goes without a fuss. He fights after he realizes that is not what is going to happen, but there is only so much he can do.

Kaizuka is not good at talking, in the rational sense that most of what he says, means nothing. If Slaine asks him a question, Kaizuka answers, without actually answering. It is similar to when Kaizuka asks a question, and Slaine does not answer. Between Kaizuka's monotone statements, and Slaine's silence, they say about the same amount, which is to say that they really say nothing at all.

Kaizuka seems to have set aside a certain amount of time for his visits. They last exactly 30 minutes. The first time, this does not seem to be a problem. Kazuka carries a conversation with himself, and Slaine lets him. Slaine is under the assumption that first time, that this is a onetime thing. He imagines that Kaizuka has better things to be doing with his time. He is wrong in at least one of those assumptions, because the visit repeats. On the second time, Kaizuka doesn't have as much to say, though he talks no less. The third time, he brings a chess set, and arranges it between them. It does not go unnoticed that Slaine gets the dark pieces. Slaine lets Kaizuka play by himself, which, predictably, Kaizuka does.

The next day, there is a new book in his room about how to play chess, and above it is a small, folding chess board, with little plastic pieces. He contemplates choking himself with one of them -a pawn, of course, preferably white- but dismisses the thought, and goes back to sleep.

He sleeps a lot these days.


	2. Chapter 2

One day, he has a new visitor. She is at first welcome, or at least as welcome as he is willing to go, which admit ably is not much, even to a woman. They do not drag him out of his cell into the thick glass room that they do to meet Kaizuka, which is a relief. He feels so much better with the bars between him and the rest of the world, or whatever small part of it knows or cares he's here. He's starting to suspect that not many people do know. He expected to get a letter from Harklight's family at this point, cursing him and damning him to hell. He really wants that letter.

What he gets, is worse, though it is under the guise of something he does not recognize. The guards fidget as if it is a Thursday, which sets him on edge. He isn't in a good mood, not that he's ever in a good mood, but still. He's been fiddling with the plastic chess pieces at night, so that no one is suppose to notice. He's positive that they do know, but he's hoping that the night watchman is as useless as everyone complains he is. He doesn't want Kaizuka to know that he is even slightly interested in the set.

He is expecting Kaizuka. It is not what he expects, when a woman strolls into the prison, and seats herself in a chair outside of his cell. He is curled up on the bed when she does, and he glances at her as she sets herself up, and sits without any extra movements. She is young, but not as young as he is, and he is positive he has never met her before. He wonders if she is a new doctor, but it was odd for the guards to be so ill at ease about a doctor, so he has to wonder.

She glances over his cell for a while, looking over the books he has not touched, the one still discarded on the end of the cell, and the chess set. There isn't much else to look at. She frowns.

"Do you play?" She asks him, when her eyes settle on the chess set. Her voice is crisp, and clear.

He thinks about not answering her. She is in the military blues of the UFE, so he doesn't feel obligated to answer. But he can hear his father telling him to treat women with respect. He can feel Cruhteo back handing him for not being polite to the princess. His answer is actually involuntary; it's out of his mouth long before he's decided he's going to answer. He'd have to fight not to answer her. He sits up, as is proper. "No."

She doesn't seem surprised at his response, but the guards behind her do. They're blinking and looking at one another. Slaine never talks to them, he only screams at things -never people- or is entirely silent.

The woman wrinkles up her nose, and for a woman, it is a cute gesture. "Don't. He always wins. It's a waste of your time."

He doesn't know how to answer her, so he nods politely in acknowledgement. He would like to tell her that he already has plenty of time to waste, but he doesn't. That would be rude. Instead, he keeps his eyes trailed on the ground, only taking glances at her once in a while, and never looking directly at her. Around, down, to the side. Never right at her, and never above her. He knows how to keep his eyes down, and still see things; he's been rather good at it for a while.

She huffs, as if this is a trying affair for her. "Is there anything you want?"

No one has asked him that. Not once. He could ask for things, and his guess is he would probably get them, but he doesn't want anything. Even if he did want something, he isn't accustomed to getting what he asks for, or being indulged. "No."

She spares a glance at his small pile of books, and her scowl deepens. "I'll get you something you can actually read." She then shrugs, as if a thought has just hit her. "Or maybe you like quantum physics. You are Dr. Troyard's son. The layer of dust speaks for itself though."

He winces at his father's name, and wants to tell her that he's Slaine Saazbaum now, the son of a great, horrible man, not Slaine Troyard, son of a great, wonderful man. He doesn't, of course, but he wants to. Instead, he looks at her for just a few moments, and lets the conversation die. He notices that she also does not look at him. She looks everywhere else in the cell, but not at him. He doesn't know exactly why, but he has some pretty good guesses. She folds her arms in front of her, and cocks her head. "Is it always this quiet?"

"No. They've turned the TV off for you." His statement isn't false. Usually he can hear the TV wafting from the guard room, but today it is dead silent. There's just her not looking at him, and he not looking at her, and the guards, who are looking at each other, shifting from foot to foot. If there are other living souls in the compound, he doesn't know about them.

She looks around, obviously wondering if she had not noticed a television before; when she doesn't see it, her face scrunches up, before turning back towards his general direction. "You're allowed to watch TV then."

"No." He wonders if he should expand upon that, if it is the proper decision. He decides not to, then does it anyway. "The guards watch television." He remembers enjoying it when he was young: watching science programs with his father, enjoying Sunday morning cartoons on the weekend. He doesn't remember those things well anymore.

She shifts, and her arms, still crossed over her chest, shift with her. "Do you want to watch TV?"

"No." That is perhaps the easiest answer he has given her yet. He has no interest in the dribble that earth television provides. In fact, he isn't interested in television on any planet.

She is not happy. He can see it in the curve of her lips, the lines around her eyes, but she doesn't look at him. The woman turns her head, and looks over at one of the two guards, who snap to attention under her scrutiny -and it is scrutiny, she is displeased. "Is he always like this?"

The guards look between each other, as if they're sharing a private joke, and shake their heads. He can see the guard she isn't looking at mouth the word 'no' comically, before looking somewhere else. The guard she addressed is much more polite about the situation. "No, ma'am. Troyard hardly ever speaks. You've gotten more words out of him in the past ten minutes than I've heard in months."

From the partial view he has of her face, he can see her features darken. She turns back towards him, and checks her wrist watch. She tries not to make a disgruntled sound and fails. She turns back to the guard. "What does he usually do?"

The guards share another look, before the one she's looking at straightens up, and answers her. "Nothing, ma'am. He doesn't read the books, he doesn't talk, and he doesn't eat very often. He sleeps a lot." Three clumsy sentences, that's what his life is now. Maybe he should just sleep more.

The other guard looks sheepish, but opens his mouth none the less. "He likes music, ma'am." Slaine realizes far too late, that it is the guard who realized he liked the music. If he cared a whole lot about anything, he'd feel slighted.

The woman looks back at him, but still does not meet his eyes. "Do you like music?"

It seems like a dumb question. Everyone likes music. Even people on Mars like music, and they have horrible taste in just about everything. Even they have music, and they like it. It's one of the only things the poor there get. Of course he likes music. "No."

He's found that lying is actually quite easy, though he still doesn't like it very much.


	3. Chapter 3

Word travels fast of his 'conversation'. The woman left without leaving her name, and only after thirty minutes had passed. This makes him believe that she is somehow a stand in for Kaizuka. He hopes she is, and that Kaizuka never comes back. He will realize later that he was thinking about the situation all wrong, but there will be time for that later.

Almost overnight, there are more women on staff. They seem to have discovered his one true weakness, two X chromosomes. It isn't that he can't be mean to women - Lemrina deserved so much better - it's just that he has a very hard time being outright rude to them. It's been ingrained in him from an early age to be respectful, and even after that, it was beaten into him. It's a hard thing to break.

He doesn't like this change. The new staff makes it incredibly difficult to maintain his rude, solitary, wasting lifestyle. When one of the female guards casually asks him something trivial, he answers without deciding he will. She looks like she's won a bet of some sort, and he almost wants to hurt her. When one of them tells him to eat, he almost does. It's from a woman, and it's an order. He wants to do exactly as she's telling him to. In the end, after breaking out in a cold sweat and chewing on his lip until it bleeds, he throws the tray of food against the far wall of the cell. They're wearing him down, and its working. He finds that he loses his temper more often than he did before.

There is now a TV facing his cell. He cannot change the station, and it is set to a station that never shows the news, never talks about Mars, and never mentions Princess Asseylum. It just keeps pumping out the same humorous shows, again and again and again: this one is a high school drama, this one is about space, this one is about history, this one is about a girl who can speak to dolphins, this one is about a family that doesn't like each other. Within three days, he can't stand it. In a fit of rage, he retrieves the 'Rayleigh' book and hurls it against the television. It smashes right through the screen with a satisfying, shattering sound, 'Scattering' it. It is an immensely satisfying moment. The television is removed, and not replaced. He is so relieved that he smiles that day. There is blissful silence once more. He almost wishes they'd left it there, so that he could still look at it, all broken and hollow.

The books do get better. Instead of heavy science books -which he does actually like, but what good is that sort of knowledge now, no one but his father took an interest in his education, it seems pointless now- there is dribble; adventure stories, romance novels, mystery. They don't seem like intelligent books, but he wants to read them none the less. He doesn't read them of course, but he does want to. At night, when everything is silent, he pads over to where they sit, day in and day out. He picks one up, and runs his fingers over the cover, feeling the embossed titles etched in the bindings.

Sometimes, he even opens up the pages, and runs his hands across the words. It's too late, too dark, so there is no way he can read what is written, but he likes to imagine that he can feel the ink on the page. Some nights, he even imagines he's the writer, what his life would have been like if he had been able to sit down and write things; if he allowed himself to do it now. Sometimes, he spends all night curled up with one of those books, feeling it inside and out, trying to memorize it with only his hands. When he can start to see again, he pads silently back to where the books sit, and places the book back where it belongs. He then curls up in bed, and going to sleep.

He thinks about letters a lot, and words. If he was to write something, anything, how could he ever possibly do it right? The answer is he can't, so he won't. It's that simple.


	4. Chapter 4

The woman -who he calls 'woman' in his head, in some spiteful attempt to be rude, because she's changed the whole dynamic of this damn prison- returns. She does not look well. She's as put together as she was before, but her uniform hasn't been ironed, and her footsteps are faster and more pounding than they were before.

She takes a seat, as she did before, and folds her arms in front of her, as she did before. What is different this time, is that before, she looked like she was repelling him with the action, this time; it looks more like she's holding herself. He doesn't think she realizes these subtle differences. He probably wouldn't either, if he had a life anymore. He dares to take a good look at her face, as she stares off into nothing, and he notices the crease of her brow, how her eyes are clouded and impartial. He suddenly realizes who this woman is.

She isn't only Kaizuka's stand in, she's related. It's in her eyebrows and her eyes. He couldn't see it before because she shows what she's feeling, and she says what she means, but now that he can see it, it is the most obvious thing in the world. He made this same mistake with Princess Lemrina; for the longest time, he just couldn't see any resemblance to Princess Asseylum, until suddenly, it was as obvious as day. Their lips and chin were the same, their fingers the same elongated, delicate digits. From then on, he could never ignore it. This woman is Kaizuka's blood relative. She probably cried when Slaine shot Kaizuka in the head. She probably stayed by Kaizuka's bed side while he was recovering. They probably played together as kids, ate meals together, watched dumb television together, did normal, family things.

He is going to be ill. Not now, not right that very moment, but he will be. He'll wait till its dark; because that's the only facade of privacy he gets in this place.

He wants Kaizuka to come back. Now that he knows, he can't face this woman. Can't look at her and think about how much pain he's caused her. And she brought him books, and made sure he got a television. He wants to hide. Instead, he straightens up, and looks down at the ground.

He can feel that she is scowling at him. "I guess you weren't lying when you said you didn't want to watch TV."

He nods his head without looking at her.

"You like the books though." She doesn't sound happy, but she is less irritated. He wonders if he deserves the sense of betrayal that goes through him at the statement. He's known from the beginning that he had no privacy in this place, but it still stings. It was as close to a harmless secret as he can have now, and even that is denied him.

He reminds himself who he's talking to, and tells himself, no, he does not deserve to have that sense of betrayal. He shoves the feeling aside. "Yes Ma'am."

She makes a sound in her throat, that is something like an hmm, with more authority, and less whimsy. "I'll get you more then." She clears her throat, and he spares enough of a glance at her to see that she is still holding her arms. He quickly angles his gaze back down to the floor. "You didn't want the television, would you prefer a radio?"

He shakes his head. "I don't need it, Ma'am."

He can almost feel her glare making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. "That isn't what I asked." He doesn't answer her, because he doesn't want to lie to this woman. She doesn't deserve that, so he stays quiet. The sigh that escapes her is full of pent up aggression. "Do you prefer anything?"

A bullet to the forehead would do, but he isn't going to tell her that. He is positive that if she could, she would. She wears that uniform like a second skin. He's noticed the calluses on her fingers, and how her commanding voice sounds like a squad leader. He has no doubt that she'd put a bullet in his head at the first chance she got. She can't, for whatever reason. Taunting her is all that he would accomplish. She doesn't deserve that. "No, Ma'am." That isn't a lie either, so it will do.

She is frustrated with him, but she only lets it stop her for a few minutes, before she picks up the conversation again. "Can you play an instrument?"

Possibilities run through his head at rapid speed. "Yes, Ma'am."

"What instrument can you play?" Her question is not one of interest, and it is easy to tell. He wonders if she's playing with him, or if they're thinking the same thing. Maybe she just needs to fill time.

He pauses for just a beat. "Cello, Ma'am. I played the cello when I was young." It isn't entirely a lie.

She hums, as if she's trying to be interested, and failing. "That would give you something to do during the day, and having something to do seems to make you more agreeable."

The rest of their conversation is rather dry. He is polite, and answers her questions, or doesn't. Nothing of note happens, and she leaves after her allotted thirty minutes. He is happy to see her go, but the earlier conversation keeps stirring in his head.

He remembers the cello; his father's was a big, willful instrument. Too big for when he was trying to play it. He remembers the long, thick strings, how hard they were to press down, and how his fingers ached after only one try. The violin was so much more agreeable, its trill chirping like the fluttering of wings and bird songs. He loved that violin, but he remembers father's cello. Remembers it's thick, beautiful, vibrating strings, leaving bruises on his finger tips.

He wonders if it will really be that easy.

He gets out of bed, and goes to where the books are. He picks one up, and goes back to his bed. He's never dared to touch the books during the day, except for that horrid Rayleigh book, which was a mistake to begin with. Now, he doesn't feel like there's any need to stay away from them.


	5. Chapter 5

"Do you think something happened? He should be here by now..."

Rayet looks up from her reader long enough to give Inko her characteristic stare of disinterest. Inko is pouting. Her lips are pursed, and she is unknowingly strangling the strap of her purse. She is not looking at Rayet, which is fine.

"Your shoe is untied." The statement isn't true, Inko isn't even wearing shoes with laces today, but Inko swoops down to double check. She makes a sort of whimpering sound when she realizes that she's been tricked, and pouts up at Rayet. It is a cute pout, not anything like the one before; her right cheek puffing out as she bounces back into an upright position with a huff. It gets her eyes off the arrival board and her mind off of realities, and her hands from wringing on her purse strap. It's going to break if she's not careful. It's churlish, but successful. "It's been five minutes, Inko. Most shuttles arrive late."

Inko looks at Rayet for a moment, then down at her feet, and the puff of her lips this time is not childish or cute.

"You aren't cute when you're sullen." Sullen is not the word Rayet would use to describe Inko at that exact moment. Calling her sullen makes her seem childish, and though Inko can be childish, right now, she is anything but. Regardless, it is a good word to use at that exact moment.

Inko huffs at her. "We can't all be smiles and giggles, all the time, like you, Rayet." Inko is trying to tease her, but Inko is not very good at that. Rayet considers shrugging it off, but instead, she plays along.

"There's always time for improvement if you want lessons." She watches as Inko's eyes go a little wide. She obviously did not expect that Rayet would take her bait, and was unprepared for it. Inko looks back down at the ground, and grips her purse. There is blush on her face, but exactly why it is there, remains a mystery. Rayet is sure Inko isn't embarrassed. Rayet looks back at her reader.

The sigh that escapes Inko's mouth sounds tired. "I thought we were done with these things."

Rayet finds where she left off, placing her eyes squarely on the word she had read before she turned her attention away. She keeps it in sight as she answers. "Wars happen for reasons."

She can feel Inko turn her eyes away from the display, and look at her. "We won the war." This seems to mean, in Inko's head, that they shouldn't be dealing with this sort of thing anymore.

"If Earth won, then Vers lost."

Inko is quiet for a while. She's probably looking back at the ground. Rayet has already finished a page, when she finally speaks again. "I guess both sides don't win a war, even if one gives up."

"That is how things work." Rayet stops reading, and stares at the word she's on for a few seconds. She soaks in Inko's silence, and the distant din of people coming and going in other halls of the air port. Their hall is silent, only the echoes of life reach them here. Such is the world they find themselves in. "He'll be here so-"

Rayet is cut off by an announcement, which informs them that the shuttle has landed. It's the only one coming, so they both know it's the one they're there for. Inko bounces from foot to foot, while Rayet calmly shuts off her reader, places it inside its case, and slips it into Inko's purse. It's big enough for both of them.

The door leading to the shuttle opens, and a few people filter out. They're all in the blue of the UFE, and their numbers are sparse. None of them are Inaho, which is not inherently surprising. He is understandably the last to disembark, as he hobbles along with the cast on his left leg, and the crutch led under his arm pit. His right arm is in a sling, but not in a cast, and despite the injuries, he looks well enough. The other personnel that got off the shuttle are all sort of lingering around, making sure that he gets along fine. They're trying not to be too obvious about their concern. She wonders how many times Inaho blatantly disregarded their offers of assistance. She can hear many stale comments being made about the weather or food, as eyes wander.

Inko either doesn't seem to notice, or doesn't care; she all but runs over to Inaho, inspecting and mothering and being generally concerned for his well being. Rayet does not think that Inaho is at all surprised. Rayet gives them a few moments, before she wanders over.

"I told you that you'd regret going." Her comment isn't biting, but it is matter-of-fact. She does distinctly remember saying almost exactly that three weeks ago when he departed.

Inaho looks at her - Inko still fussing over this and that - and she is not surprised to see interest in his eyes. "Quite the opposite, I found Mars to be fascinating."

Inko deflates almost instantly. "Inaho, please don't make this a regular thing..."

He looks over at Inko, and Rayet can tell that he does not understand what she means, though he does seem to get her general concern. "Travel between Mars and Earth needs to be more consistent to harbor stronger ties."

Rayet almost chuckles. Almost. "Better you than diplomats, or school children." Inko rounds on her with a pleading look on her face at Rayet's comment, but Rayet's eyes are squarely on Inaho. "Both of which want no part of it now."

"Understandably." Is Inaho's only answer.

Inko looks back over at Inaho, and Rayet actually does feel bad that there are tears in her eyes. "You're going to go back, aren't you?" Inaho looks at her, and doesn't say anything. It's enough of a confirmation.

Rayet shrugs. "Next time, you can just steal his crutch and he won't be going anywhere." Which is a clear way of telling Inaho, that he is not going anywhere until the injuries are well mended. That isn't something she's going to compromise on, for Inko's sake.

Inaho looks at her, and cocks his head. "I think that would be in very poor taste."

Rayet shrug, but otherwise ignores his comment. She starts a slow pace to the luggage retrieval, wandering ahead, and allowing Inko and Inaho to have a few moments of solitude. She also glares away the rest of the UFE onlookers as she goes. They didn't do their job right to begin with, it seems a little late for concern.

They find Inaho's orange baggage already set aside when they arrive, and without a word Rayet hoists it up, and waits for the other two. When they catch up to her, something has changed. Inaho's demeanor was light before, now, it is quite serious. She also notices that he is gripping his phone as if he might break it. It's a strange thing for him, and when he notices that she's looking at it, he slips the device into his pocket, and away from her prying eyes.

"Rayet." It is a request and command at the same time. She's grown used to it, but it hasn't happened in a while. "I need to go somewhere." He then turns to Inko. "Sorry, I'll need you to take the bus home."

The look on Inko's face is crestfallen. "But- Inaho!"

He looks over at Inko, and shakes his head. Rayet almost rolls her eyes. "She's taking a taxi home, and you're going to pay me back for it."

Both of them look over at her, Inko with something akin to betrayal, and Inaho with understanding, a hint of mirth, and tension. She's positive that tension isn't meant for her, but now that she's noticed it, it is everywhere, in his eyes, his hands, his neck. Inaho nods. "Yes, I will."


	6. Chapter 6

The cello had not gone over well with the guards. They had not been fond, because it meant they had to do more of their actual job, instead of watching the television and occasionally looking at the video feed of his room. Every time he was allowed to play with the instrument, an armored guard stood outside, looking bored and irritated. Often, they drew straws on who would have to stand watch, and the loser was never happy about it.

Slaine found that he didn't care. His eyes had fallen on the cello, and it hadn't mattered. He remembered how his father used to play, his big hands moving delicately along the finger board, both strong and graceful. He remembered Bach, Tchaikovsky, and Vivaldi. Of winter nights by the fire place as they practiced together, and summer days when Slaine could convince his father to take a break from research for a duet.

The glares and huffs of the guards hadn't mattered at all. Not a whole lot else had. He'd spent as much time with the instrument as he could, and he'd forgone any other activity to spend even one more second with it. His hands would grace the instruments deep brown curves, and he'd play.

It was childish at best, since the cello had never been his instrument before, but he didn't mind. Even in his unskilled hands, hands that weren't much good for music anymore, the cello sang. Every deep, resounding sound it made was something philosophical to him. Even mistakes were a blessing, and there was something profound about leaving the violin behind for the cello. He'd been a different person then, with his stubby fingers, his small, quarter sized violin, and the calluses that hardened his left hand. It was different, and he could never be that person again.

The guards of course did not like it, but he had been learning to ignore them before. With the cello in his hands, it was like they didn't exist. The prison walls faded away, and it was only him and the sound as it echoed around him.

On the second day, they made him eat before they would give him the instrument. He had expected something in this vein the minute he showed interest in anything, but it happened much faster than he had anticipated. It just served to show how obviously he enjoyed the instrument, and how easy it was for them to manipulate him into doing what they wanted. The taste in his mouth wasn't bitterness; it was resignation. He had suspected, and as it turned out, he had suspected correctly. He ate the food, and they brought him the cello.

On the third day, he'd practiced with bruised fingers for hours. When the guard finally retrieved the instrument, the woman had given him a comment that wasn't quite a compliment. She did not take the chair that accompanied the instrument with her. This was a step in the proper direction.

He slept most of the time that he didn't have the cello in those short days. If sleep eluded him, he'd lie in bed, moving his fingers as if he was playing, trying to regain the muscle memory in his fingers that he thought had been long lost. If he did neither of those things, he read. The book he'd happened to pick up first was a harlequin novel of some sort, and he was more than happy to admit that its poor composition was enough to distract him.

It was the fifth day that he got his actual chance. One of the less enthusiastic guards had lost the draw that day, and she was prone to wandering off. She'd had a shift two days ago, but she had been uncharacteristically vigil. After five days of no incidents, she and her fellow guards seemed to think there wasn't much of an issue. The cello had been accepted as a new norm.

The guard had slipped away for just a few moments, and he'd taken the time to remove one of the strings. The A string, because that had seemed appropriate. He'd been expecting someone to notice, for one of the guards in the office to simply glance over at the recording of his room, and see that something was off. Or for one of them to realize that his playing had stopped, and wonder why. That did not happen. When they took the instrument away that evening, they didn't even notice that one of the strings was missing. They also left the chair, as they had for the past two days.

It was enough of a chance. He'd seen a few hangings on Mars; he knew how the general mechanics were supposed to work.

It had not worked.

He'd waited till that evening, hoping that the night guard would not notice. What he hadn't counted on, was that his neck seemed a lot stronger than he'd expected after starving himself. He also had not accounted for the very short drop he was allowed.

It had been the longest six minutes of his life, before the night guard had rushed in and gotten him down.

In hindsight, it was a stupid choice to begin with. He had not anticipated that if his neck didn't break from the fall, that he would just sit there strangling to death. He knew what drowning was like, and he'd wanted nothing to do with loss of air ever again. It was a slow torturous way to die, and even if he knew he deserved that, he didn't want it. But even admitting that made him greedy.

He'd had his chance to die in the moon base. To be crushed by debris, or to have space have its way with him. He'd seen what it had done to Marylcain, it had felt like a suitable end at the time. But he'd been greedy. He'd had his chance, but he'd seen Kaziuka's orange kataphract dance in front of him, and he'd dashed out, like the impulsive child, not the stalwart leader. He'd picked his path, and he'd suffer for it. Beggars couldn't be choosers, and he felt disgusted with himself at how happy he was that he hadn't died of strangulation. As if he deserved such choices anymore.

Now, all he felt was weariness so whole that he could feel it in his bones. He let the doctor poke and prod his aching neck without sound or protest. He'd tried, and he'd failed. He knew he'd have to keep trying until he succeeded, but at that moment, he was too tired for any of it. He wanted to sleep, to have a nice dream, of the cello under his finger tips and the bow in his hand, of beautiful women with clear blue eyes and of a loyal friend long dead. He added that cello to the long list of things that he was never going to see again.

He moved his hand to cover his eyes. He didn't want to cry, but there was no helping it. He couldn't have stopped it, just like he couldn't stop the rush of emotions leaking out of him, or the shaking of his hands, or the air he was breathing. He couldn't stop any of it, and he'd been a fool to think he could.


	7. Chapter 7

Once the doctor had finished with him, the cuffs had gone back on, and he'd been herded at gun point out of the room. He watched as they went through every fold in his bed, and rifled through the books. Then they prodded him away to the glass cell that he always had his visits from Kaizuka in.

They took off the cuffs, and left him there, with a guard standing watch. He noticed right away that the table and chairs that had been there before were long gone. He wondered briefly if Kaizuka was going to visit, and that was why he was there, but as the hours passed, he realized that was not the case. A second guard came to replace the other, and through a haze, he realized that they were moving him into the glass room. Perhaps permanently. He'd had it pretty good before, three stone walls and one of iron bars. He at least had the illusion of privacy, and he could curl up on the bed and face the wall, ignoring everything else. Here, he didn't have a bed, and he wondered if they really were just going to leave him there, in the glass cage, where he would never get a moment of privacy again.

It shouldn't have mattered, but it did. His neck hurt horribly.

Resigned that he was likely not there for a visit, he gravitated to the far corner, furthest from the guards. He slumped against the glass wall, before finding even sitting up to be too much effort, and gingerly lowering himself down onto the stone floor. But the ground was so hard and cold. The drastic change in temperature felt good on the back of his neck, but made him shiver at the same time, which only aggravated the injury.

He felt more tired than he'd ever felt in his life, but sleep would not come. Many, many hours later -or what felt like many, many hours later, the woman showed up, and she was mad. She made a point of stomping her way right over to his corner and glaring down at him through the glass. He didn't dare look up at her. In fact, he wished he was asleep, or dead. One would be better than the other, but he'd take either at this point.

"That was a stupid thing to do." She sneered at him, and he noticed that she was looking right at his face, something she'd never done before. She'd always looked around him, or past him, or at the various things little things that inhabited his space. She was now deliberately going out her way, out of her own comfort zone, to try and prove some sort of point, or perhaps to punish him.

He kept his eyes off of her, and turned his head away. She huffed, and moved, so that she was in his direct line of sight. "You can't hide in your bed anymore." Her words bit, and he without thinking about it, he turned his head away from her again. She moved again into his line of sight, and he gave up. There was no escaping her. But the moment he stopped trying, she seemed to lose some of her anger. It was still there, pulsing in her fisted fingers, in the rigid line of her lips, but her eyes weren't swimming in it anymore. The sigh that escaped her sounded frustrated. "Why? If you were going to hang yourself, you could have done it months ago with the bed sheets. You liked the cello. You were actually enjoying yourself."

Maybe that was the root of the matter. He loved that cello, it had only seemed appropriate that he enjoy it like a man on his death bed.

He didn't have an answer for her; he just blankly stared in her general direction -because he couldn't escape her now- and hoped she'd go away. He didn't even know if he could answer her, wasn't sure if his vocal chords still worked properly. The whole area ached, and even breathing was painful, it was hard to tell what specific parts were hurt. The doctor hadn't told him anything about having problems speaking, but the doctor hadn't spoken to him at all. Whatever conclusions he'd come to, he hadn't shared them with his patient.

She was opening her mouth to say something else, when the large metal door to the room opened. The woman looked up at the disturbance, but Slaine didn't. He hoped it was someone who was going to take her away. He was hopeful for a few moments, when she stomped away from him, but that hope died as he followed her steps with his eyes.

Kaizuka was standing at the entrance way, dressed in civilian clothes, with a gleaming white cast on his leg, and his arm in a sling. So that's why the woman had been so different the second time she'd visited. Slaine wondered idly if being related to Kaizuka was worth all the effort on her part. He doubted it.

The woman went to meet Kaizuka, their tones were clipped and soft, and he couldn't hear them. He might have been able to try and hear, but he found that he really didn't care what they were saying. Standing side by side, it was the most obvious thing in the world that they were related. She might even have been subtly mothering him, right there in broad daylight. Might, it was hard to tell, and Slaine couldn't bring himself to care. He let his eyes wander as they conversed with one another.

His eyes must have drifted closed at some point, but he sluggishly opened them again when he heard the sound of the glass door opening. He looked up enough to see that Kaizuka was standing over him, and to notice that the woman was gone. Kaizuka had never frightened him as the woman had, so he raised his head up despite the pain in his neck, and looked straight at that one eye looking down on him.

It almost looked like Kaizuka didn't know what to say. He'd always been so forthcoming with useless words and matter of fact statements. Kaizuka hid behind them, to hide that he didn't know what he was suppose to say about situations, or at least, that was what Slaine had concluded. Now, Kaizuka just stood there saying nothing. If Slaine wasn't so tired, he would have been unnerved by it, but he found he was having a hard time feeling much of anything.

When Kaizuka did speak, it was not what Slaine expected. "Do you want to play chess?"

It was a dumb, moronic question, and it spoke to just how out of his element Kaizuka was. He didn't know what to do, and it was painfully obvious. Slaine should have laughed, would have under almost any other circumstances. Instead, Slaine just nodded once, and that's what they did. They played their first chess game, and predictably, Slaine lost.


	8. Chapter 8

"Medication might be necessary. I would have already implemented it if I didn't think it would cause a great deal of initial stress." Slaine did not eat his meals often, and it was difficult to gauge when he would. He showed no preference in what he ate, and no foreseeable pattern to when he did. As with everything else, Slaine's sporadic eating habits were unpredictable. Slipping medication into his food was thus unlikely to produce results. The alternative was force, something they had thus refrained from using in any real capacity. Force was not his intent, but as it had been in the war, Slaine refused to rise to any other bait. Inaho looked over the documents in front of him, and puffed just a small bit of air out of his nose. "If force is necessary, it would be more beneficial and less intrusive to start implementing regular food consumption first. It might give us an indication of how much resistance we will face, and a regular diet might normalize his moods." Inaho doubted it, but it was a possibility.

"Nao-kun," his older sister groaned. "It's time for bed."

Inaho did not look up from the papers spread out on the table. "I slept on the shuttle. I'm not tired." He hadn't slept much on the shuttle, to many people around, to many of them seemingly fretting over his injuries. He had to stay awake to rebuff their concerns, but it was a reasonable thing to tell his sister. His shoulder also hurt, which was not abnormal, but would make sleep difficult. "I'll be quiet Yuki-nee. Sleep well."

His sister gave an exasperated groan, before ambling over towards him. She placed herself behind him, still standing, so that when she looked down at him, her hair hung around his face. "I'm staying up if you are." She stuck out her tongue at him as he blinked up at her.

"Childishness is unbecoming for grown women."

His sister rolled her eyes before smiling down at him. Then all smiles were gone from her face when she looked over the spread documents. "He was cooperative while you were gone. Relatively. I went in blind, but as you can tell, he did respond."

If it was jealousy that tickled his sides, Inaho mentally reminded himself how his sister's intervention had ended, and the emotion was gone. He then amended that Yuki-nee had done very little without his support and supervision, so that whatever outcome had resulted, was both of their doing. Jealousy wasn't quite what he'd describe the feeling as anyway. "Most men prefer females."

Yuki-nee scoffed, and then laughed. "I don't think prefer is the word. He's scared of girls."

Inaho looked back down at the papers in front of him, not really looking at any one page of data. "Some imposed sense of chivalry seems more likely than fear. Such a concept does not seem so foreign now that I have visited Mars."

Yuki-nee hummed, before moving to the other side of the table, and folding her arms over her chest. "Imposed? Don't you mean self-imposed?"

Inaho blinked, and looked at his sister. "Perhaps at this point." He then turned back to the papers in front of him. "Aggression increased with the addition of female guards, but general responses also increased."

"Chivalry, huh?" Yuki-nee seemed to roll the word around her mouth, letting silence fill the room before she spoke again. "I guess that makes sense." She turned to look at him. "Do you think he didn't want to answer, but that this chivalry made him more responsive?"

Another puff of air escaped Inaho's nose, but it was likely the only indicator of his actual conclusions. "The decision was made to see how Slaine would react. I think with the data gathered, it seems safe to conclude that the added aggression is in direct relation to a conflict of interest between egos."

"So half of him is saying 'don't talk', and the other side is saying 'well you have to talk to women'?" Yuki-nee sighed, before shifting her weight to a different foot. "Nao-kun, he isn't a science experiment. How long are you going to keep doing this? Do you have an end goal?"

Inaho sat back in his chair, his left arm moving down to the cast, only to stop half way and going limp beside him. It itched, but it wasn't something he could help. "I have some understanding of what success will look like."

His sister didn't look like she believed him. With how he'd said it, he wasn't too surprised by that. "Nao-kun, he isn't a pet-"

"I've never-"

"Nao-kun, you were just talking about force feeding him! What are you going to do, feed him with a dropper like a baby bird that fell out of its nest? He's a 19 year old mass murder, he isn't a pet project." Her tone was harsh, but also light. There was softness, behind the edges of her words. Sometimes his sister still baffled him.

The two of them fell into silence. Inaho could feel Yuki-nee's eyes boring into him, imploring him to at least tell her why. He had neglected to do so, but he doubted his sister would find the answer logical. "By your logic, I am also a mass murderer."

His sister seemed unconcerned by the statement. "And so am I. That isn't my point Nao-kun." She moved closer to him, and placed a hand on his shoulder, the one that wasn't in pain. "My point is that you need to try empathizing. That's hard for you. What would you want, if you were in his shoes?"

It was hard. He couldn't simply hypothesize an answer. "I wouldn't make the mistakes he has."

Yuki-nee smiled, and a breath of air that could have been a laugh puffed out of her nose. "We both know that. But try to think about it, okay? I don't know why you want to do this, and I don't like it, but I want you to be happy. This is distressing you. If leaving it in the hands of someone who is more qualified will do that, I think it's a good idea."

He couldn't tell her that it was his responsibility, just like he couldn't tell her that Seylum was just as much a part of him and he was of her. He certainly couldn't tell Yuki-nee that this was Seylum's wish, that she had wanted this done, and entrusted it to him, thus linking he and Slaine Troyard. It was irrational, and he knew it. But it had been Seylum's request, the only expression of faith she could give to him now, and he would not betray that. Just as Seylum was a part of him now, Slaine Troyard also had to become part of him, even if he had no idea how to go about doing that. He didn't know how he came to regard Seylum that way either, he'd found it baffling from the beginning, but after she'd been shot, his bafflement hadn't mattered. It still didn't, because Seylum would always be a part of him, but it didn't help him try and figure out how to go about doing that with Slaine. But he couldn't tell Yuki-nee that, couldn't express that that was his end goal. Because it was illogical, and immaterial. It wasn't something he would just wake up and know, there were too many variables, and Inaho didn't do illogical. But there he was. Yuki-nee was right, there were a host of other people more suited to this task than he was, but he wasn't going give it up for anything.


	9. Chapter 9

"You've developed a cold."

Slaine wants to say something obnoxious, like 'No, it's my allergies acting up. I've been spending too much time outdoors.' or 'Sleeping on concert without blankets has been known to do that.' but of course he doesn't say any of those things. He picks up his rook, and instead of saying anything, a sneeze erupts from his mouth. It seems like a good enough response, even if it wasn't planned. The rook tumbles out of his hand, disrupting a few of the other pieces. He doesn't care enough to pick it up, so he leaves it there, wobbling on the board, and lightly wipe at his nose with his hand.

As if imploring Slaine to keep playing, Kaizuka's eye zeros in on the discarded rook, and the other pieces that have been disturbed. He looks at them for what seems like a long time before shifting his gaze back up at Slaine. "The doctor will see you this afternoon, and prescribe medication. You are to take it." He blinks his eye back down at the board, and then again it is on Slaine. "Extra amounts of warm water will be provided. Your lips are dry."

Slaine wants to be unhappy about being ordered around, would like to say a lot of things actually, but he owes Kaizuka. He spent three days on that concert floor without blankets, because they thought he would try and hang himself again. In fact, he had been informed by many guards that he was lucky to even be clothed. Three days, then Kaizuka hobbles in with his cast, crutch, and sling, and the bed is moved into the glass room. He's going to sleep in a bed that night, and it's all Kaizuka's doing. There is some spiteful part of him that is trying to convince him to keep sleeping on the concert floors. It would be some form of protest, but he's been taking orders for a lot longer than he's been giving them. He is going to sleep on that bed, and he's going to feel like a weakling for doing it, but maybe that doesn't matter. He doesn't know.

Slaine clears his throat, trying to get rid of whatever seems to be sticking to the inside of it, then shakes his head dismissively, and reaches down for the rook. "Did you become ill when you moved to Vers?"

Slaine's hand stops half way to the fallen piece, as Kaizuka's question hits him. He is instantly suspicious, and he looks over at Kaizuka, not sure exactly why he's asking such a thing. It's trivial. "Yes." Slaine doesn't know why he answers, other than it seems harmless. He should know better than that, this is Kaizuka Inaho he is talking to, no detail is harmless, and no sensation or information escapes his steal trap of a mind. If anyone can use that one simple 'yes' against him, it's going to be Kaizuka. One way or another, Slaine is sure of it. But of all the things Kaizuka already knows, or already has, such a simple answer seems comparatively trivial. Is comparatively trivial.

Kaizuka is watching Slaine's hand, again, seeming to implore him to pick up the rook, before he angles his lone eye back up at Slaine. "We are having difficulties procuring your medical history."

Slaine wishes he was smarter. If he was, he could start rattling off medications that he doesn't want to take, telling Kaizuka that he is allergic to them. It would be so easy, if only he knew that sort of information. Then he wonders if he does have any serious allergies to medications. It's an avenue that he'd never considered before. Wouldn't it be ironic for him to die of some bad reaction to a medication Kaizuka thought was going to help him? It's a little more spiteful than he actually is, so the thought doesn't sit well with him, but it is something to consider. Instead of giving a proper answer, Slaine lets his hand slip away from the chess board, and shrugs one shoulder.

It looks like Kaizuka is unpleased by the reaction, but it is always hard to tell with him. "Tracking your father's research locations was very easy, but finding physicians with even partial medical histories is proving difficult."

Slaine does not find this surprising. He remembers two clinics; one in Makati for backbone fever, which he remembers very well, and one in Dar es Salaam, which he does not remember well. There would be no way for him to track down those doctors now, provided they survived the war at all. Regular checkups had never been a priority for either Troyard, and Versian medical records were shoddy for anyone who didn't have the money to make sure they weren't.

Kaizuka keeps looking at him. There is a question in his stare, but Slaine almost makes him want to ask it. Kaizuka doesn't ask many questions. He implies what sort of answer he wants, and then seems to forget that he hasn't asked for an answer. His questions, when he does actually state them, tend to be calculated. Slaine can easily see where his original question was headed. The one that Kaizuka wants to ask now is more direct. Slaine looks away, over at the guard holding his large gun -one of the few male guards still left- and looking disinterested in their conversation. Slaine wonders if he can hear them or not. Perhaps not. "I don't remember anything about that." He then sneezes again, and with the motion, he is thrown into dizziness for a few moments, before righting himself.

"You are lying." The statement is flat, and he can almost hear the woman's voice in Inaho's tone. Almost. He wonders if Kaizuka was more emotional, if he would resemble the woman more. Slaine distances himself from that thought as quickly as he can. To distract himself, Slaine looks over at the clock above the guard's head. Ten more minutes of Kaizuka. Or at least he hope there is only ten more minutes of Kaizuka. It is not a Thursday; Kaizuka was here three days ago. It was not a whole week, let alone two like it should have been. Slaine would be more irritated if he hadn't gotten his bed back out of the bargain, but finds that he doesn't have the patience for Kaizuka. He might never. Perhaps especially now that he has a bed waiting for his overheating forehead, his dizzy head, the gunk that lines his throat, and his neck which has not stopped pulsing and aching in three days. Ten minutes seems like a long time.

Slaine looks down at the chess board, before deflating into the back of his chair, his shoulders slumping, and his legs extending. Without intent, his right leg pushes up against the hard plaster of Kaizuka's cast, but once he's done it, Slaine pushes harder on the cast. "Found a new enemy?"

If he didn't know better, Slaine would almost say Kaizuka is insulted by the statement. The simple answer Slaine receives is a firm "No." and it is far too firm for Kaizuka's lips. Has he flustered Kaizuka? What a refreshing thought that is.

Slaine almost smiles. Almost. "Take my advice. When you beat him," Slaine leans over the table, and he can hear the clanking of a few of the chess pieces as they fall off and clatter to the floor. He takes a good long look at Kaizuka's one good eye, and the patch that hides what is likely a gaping, ugly hole. "pull the trigger."


	10. Chapter 10

Inaho's first impulse is to end the visit early. Slaine has somehow wrestled control out of the situation, despite the safe, controlled environment that Inaho has fashioned around him. Despite the fact that Slaine hasn't slept restfully in three days, that he has still shown signs of apathy and irritation, that he has refused food for as long as he's been in the observation room. Despite all that, somehow, Slaine Troyard has gained the upper hand in one of their conversations.

That single fact lodges itself in his brain, as he contemplates what the best course of action is. He eliminates his first impulse to retreat. He is in no actual danger, this is his controlled space, but there is obviously something outside of his control within it. He should have calculated for loose lips, but he was quite firm on how much information would be allowed to Slaine. Had Slaine unpredictably stumbled upon something, and was able to read him well enough to know that it was important? Unpredictable is a word Inaho has grown accustomed to using in description of Slaine, but it seems to well timed. It is possible that one of the staff is not maintaining protocol.

Regardless, it is not a favorable situation, despite the very small part of him that he only now realizes has missed that headstrong look on Slaine's face. Inaho had only seen it a few times in the war, hadn't even realized he'd categorized it until just that moment.

Objectivity remains in the forefront of his head as he meets Slaine's eyes head on. Then Slaine sneezes, and the image is broken. There is almost humor in it, his movements jerking and the glazed nature his eyes take which likely indicates some form of sensory impairment. Inaho should be relieved, but he is not. Slaine's eyes clear, but the cocky look does not return. He once again looks miserable and tired. Inaho would be hard pressed to call it an improvement.

"An inquiry will be filed to have medical records sent from Vers." Slaine does not look at him; his blue eyes are on the chess board, or perhaps looking through it. Once again, Inaho is being ignored. "After your medical evaluation, I will leave it up to the doctor's discretion to medicate you or wait."

"Wait." The response confirms that Slaine is indeed listening, but that is not surprising. The single word almost sounds like a command, if it wasn't for how hollow it sounded. Inaho is not inclined to heed the statement, but he amends his thinking. This is a matter regarding Slaine's health, intimate knowledge of which only Slaine has, and he is refusing to cooperate. There is a rational concern that the response is in some poor attempt to prolong his illness, thus leading to further complications. Another possibility is that adequate medical records can and will be obtained by contacting the proper authorities on Vers. With Slaine's self destructive behavior to consider, the former seems a more likely culprit, but Inaho takes note of both.

"Discretion will be handled by the physician." Slaine ignores him again, and his whole head turns to look at the clock once more. Inaho also allows his eye to blink over to the time piece. Four more minutes. "Eat lunch and dinner." It goes without saying that he refused breakfast. Yuki-nee says that Inaho pays far too much attention to these things. Between calculating how many calories Slaine does ingest, and trying to predict when exactly he will eat his next meal, Inaho diverts her attention with teasing. Privately, he thinks she is probably right. He wonders if this is what being a parent feels like.

"If you have food preferences, it would be best to make them known." This is not the first time he has said this exact thing. In fact, Inaho has lost track of how many times he has said this, how many times he has ordered Slaine to eat. He ate regularly when he had the cello; it was blatant coercion, but it worked. Inaho wonders if he can replicate the phenomenon again without the adverse side effects. It is also possible that he has been too soft, and force is the necessary solution. Slaine ignores him, as the seconds tick by slowly.

"Do not be difficult with the doctor. You're cooperation will speed up the process." Privately, the doctor has already complained that treating Slaine is like treating an animal. He doesn't answer questions, and he doesn't cooperate. Yuki-nee's pet analogy is more accurate than Inaho will admit, though Inaho amends that thought by adding that a pet would be easier to care for. It would complain when it is mistreated, and it would have a natural compulsion to eat, two things that Slaine certainly lacks.

"I will return in a few days if your condition does not improve." That comment brings Slaine's head around to scowl at him. It's a better look that the normal one of apathy. Inaho had started collecting the chess pieces together, but pauses. The look on Slaine's face is something to take note of. "Should the frequency of my visits be a variable I consider?"

The sneer on Slaine's face widens at the same time that his eyes narrow. It is an unbecoming look on his face. "Doesn't matter." He almost spits the phrase out. Inaho can almost read what he's thinking. 'The four minutes are up, hurry up and leave.'

"Would you prefer-"

"Don't sick that woman on me again. I don't care what you do." Inaho almost feels like he should reproach Slaine for interrupting. It is an obvious breach of the control Inaho has thus far fostered, but he finds himself far to amused by the statement to do any such thing. Perhaps assertiveness is not as horrible as he thinks.

"I will be sure to relay how much you enjoyed her company." Inaho has been told he is no good at making jokes, and that he rarely understands them, but he is inclined to believe that he does find humor in many things. He finishes organizing the chess set, and notices the guard make his way to the door. Inaho stands, and reaches for the crutch leaning on the side of the table. "I will return should your condition not improve."

Slaine's eyes are on him, as Inaho hobbles to the door, and is allowed out of the observation room. The guard does not follow him out, which is fine. Inaho knows the way quite well, and though he is slow with the injuries, he is not in any need to rush. He leaves the chamber behind, contemplating his earlier conversation with Slaine, and how he is now going to schedule the rest of his day. The staff must be interviewed, preferably individually. The likelihood of a leak in information exists, and Inaho must be sure it is stamped out as soon as possible. If the interviews do not turn up any culprits, he might need to implant listening devices, something he had not deemed necessary in the past. The problem needs to be resolved, one way or another.

Slaine should not have known anything about the assassination attempt.


	11. Chapter 11

The next few days, or what Slaine assumes is a few days, because he has no concept of how long they actually are, pass in absolute agony. He remembers lying on that bed shortly after Kaizuka left, and everything else feels like a hazy dream. He fell asleep, only to be woken by his throat hurting, or coughing, or a headache, or dizziness, or the chills, or the fever that never seemed to go away. All of those added to the sense of detachment that lingered over him, sinking him further and further into what felt like a drug induced fog.

The most unnerving instance was waking up, and feeling like he was drowning. He would wake and could not breathe, would know that his lungs were never going to get enough air despite their constant pounding. The other symptoms woke him in a hazy, slurred sense of awareness, like a dream, but these were different. The difficulty in breathing led to all encompassing panic that only seemed to get worse. It was hard to step away from the feeling, to tell himself that he could breath normally, that he was not drowning, when he felt like he was gasping and nothing was going in or out of him.

He'd wake wide eyed and terrified in those instances, and after, wouldn't remember anything other than mind numbing terror. If any of the guards had shown concern, he didn't remember it. Once the panic would finally ebb away, he'd be left feeling even more exhausted. Sleep came more easily then, only for him to be woken shortly after by any number of the symptoms he was facing.

He almost remembers people (guards?) trying to feed him, shoving spoon full's of things at him, but whatever hunger he'd had before was long gone. Now food made him feel worse, the thought of it was horrible.

He does remember the doctor, but he has no idea when the doctor came. He remembers waking and seeing the looming figure standing over him. In something he can only describe as a hallucination, it was Trillram looking down on him, with holes in his chest and his gut. Slaine remembers screaming, or trying to scream, but the garbled mess that came out of his mouth didn't sound anything like a scream. It was like gargling, like screaming underwater, and hacking at the same time. Then it was only the doctor, looking down on him reproachfully. But the shortness of breath would not go away, and panic from the vision became panic because he could not breathe. The feeling of drowning was more than he could take, like there were things in his throat cutting off whatever air he could get.

The doctor tried to talk with him. Slaine saw his mouth move, and could hear the sounds, but he couldn't recognize them as anything. They were just sound, like he was drowning and someone safe on land was trying to have a pleasant conversation with him. Couldn't he see? Couldn't any of them see? He was drowning, he couldn't breathe. The self-loathing part of him should have been happy, but it remained silent. All he could feel was all encompassing fear. He was dying. He was going to die. He should have already died. Why couldn't he breathe? Why was there water gargling in his lungs. His heart was going to burst. He didn't want to die. Not like this. He didn't want to die like this.

He saw the syringe in the doctor's hand, and he panicked. They were going to kill him; that was the humane way of doing it, lethal injection. They'd finally decided it was time, and it horrified him. No, not now, please not now. He didn't realize he'd gotten up and pushed the doctor over until his feet were pounding against the cold floor as fast as they could take him. He got to the door, that big metal barrier, and beat against it, begging for help, from the Princess, from Harklight, from Lemrina, from Saazbaum, from his father. Over and over he pleaded for the Princess to breathe air into his lungs.

Only the guards came, and when they tried to hold him down he fought with more strength than he thought he still had. They were going to kill him, hold him down and stick that needle in him, and he should have been thankful, should have been happy, but he wasn't.

They did wrestle him to the ground, screaming and kicking and arching his back and scrambling to try and get away. The doctor loomed over him with that needle in hand. It went into his flailing arm, and the mantra of 'no, no, please, no' that escaped him mingled with the apologies, the soft sobs for the Princess to forgive him.

The world started to fade, the colors bleeding together like in the visions that Tharsis had granted him. He saw himself dead on a medical table, a knife delicately cutting him open, and he saw Kaizuka through the glass, watching. Kaizuka was looking down at him, with that one dead eye and that patch where the bullet had punched through his skull, splattering him all over the floor of the landing castle. Then the world really did fade, and there was simply nothing.


	12. Chapter 12

"No."

It took Inaho five long seconds to register his sisters answer; a clear indicator that he was fatigued. It had been a long day. He looked over at her, as she sprawled herself on the couch, a bag of snacks at her side. She reached her hand down into the bag, and procured a handful of some unhealthy snack food, before popping a few into her mouth, and looking over at him.

He was too tired to fight with her. His response was to repeat the statement. "Yuki-nee, pick up Rayet and Inko tomorro-"

"No." Her answer was just as firm and dismissive as the first had been. She was not getting the gravity of his situation. Inaho could not blame her for that, because he had not informed her, and had no intentions of doing so. But he did need this done, and he needed her to understand.

"Yuki-nee, _please_ pick up-"

"Nao-kun." She cut him off, shifting her eyes so that they were squarely on him, and the way she looked at him made him wonder if she did know. If she did understand after all. How many outward signs was he showing? Was his fatigue easy to categorize? He rarely analyzed his own responses to stress, so he didn't know. The slight puff of her lip was a clear sign that she had much more to say, and a blend of curiosity and weariness prompted him to wait. She sighed, wiping her hand off on her pajama pants, and sitting up. She placed the bag of snacks on the floor, and he was too tired to reproach her for it. "I will not pick up your friends at their hotel tomorrow, and I will not take your friends to the museum for you."

She was usually so good about these things. She always knew when he needed something. She wasn't as smart as he was, but she knew him well. She should have known what he needed from her. "Yuki-nee-"

"No." Her answer remained firm. "They came here because they were worried about you. They came here to spend time with you." She paused, and her face softened. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, and when she opened them again they were soft and concerned. "Now, tell me why you want me to do this for you, and why the buttons on your top are not buttoned right."

He looked down, and realized that she was exactly right. His buttons were mismatched. Quite obviously so, in fact. He supposed he had his answer of what basic outward signs of fatigue he showed. Yuki-nee would have had to be blind not to see that one.

He reached down and started rebut toning the shirt. He took his time, methodically feeling the fabric and aligning the proper buttons to the proper button holes. Different answers came to him at every hole, things he could say, things he should not say. Yuki-nee was already concerned, she had said as much. She had already established that he was likely not a proper caregiver (that was a poor choice of words, but it was what went through his head) for Slaine. Yuki-nee was of the opinion that he would be better off in someone else's care. Inaho was apt to agree with her, but that was not going to change anything. What should he tell her, and what should he omit?

"Slaine is being relocated to a military hospital." He finished the fifth of the eight buttons on his top when he said it. As with everything, he said it as abruptly and as forwardly as possible. "It is important that I be there as his representative." Representative was a good word. It was better than caregiver. Slaine was not some petulant child he'd been saddled with.

Yuki-nee did not seem shocked by this answer. In fact, Inaho was surprised to see that she almost looked pleased. Perhaps she was under the assumption that Inaho was relinquishing his duties, as she had advised. The glimmer in her eyes said she knew better, that there was more to the story that he was not sharing with her. "And why is he being relocated to a military hospital?"

"For treatment." He finished buttoning the last button, and froze. He'd messed up. He knew it five seconds after his mouth had closed. He hadn't said enough, if she was suspicious before, she absolutely knew he was up to something now. He hadn't said enough. There could have been so many other things he should have said. It was always the short statements that ruined him.

The look on her face was no longer hard, or playful, or anything he wanted to see. Concern was the dominant emotion, what else was there, he couldn't tell. He could usually read her on a good day. It had not been a good day. "What kind of treatment, Nao-kun?"

The moment of truth. The question was out there. He probably could have diverted her, and she might have let him in other circumstances, but it wasn't going to happen tonight. He thought about why he'd gotten her involved to begin with, and the answer was simple; he had no one else to rely on for this. No other pieces on his board. Just one lone Mustang Leader, who might tell him he was doing something wrong, but that he could rely on to help him regardless. Yuki-nee had always been that. "A chest x-ray, a CT scan, and if the doctors deem it necessary, a bronchoscopy."

She stared at him, unblinking, for 7 seconds."Nao-kun, what is going on?"

He took a deep breath, and looked at the floor for a few moments, before looking up at her again. "The doctor thinks he has developed pneumonia. The chest x-ray will either confirm or disprove it."

She nodded, one arm folding at her side, while she held up the other. One long digit extended from her hand. "Chest x-ray" she said, waving the one finger a little for emphasis. Then another went up. "CT scan?"

Inaho wavered for just a second, before he padded over to the sofa, and sat down next to her. From here, he looked forward, instead of directly at her, but he could see her looking at him from his peripheral vision. "It is possible that the attempted asphyxiation has led to cerebral hypoxia."

She leaned her head forward, so that her face was more obviously in his view. There was worry on her face, and for a moment, he wondered who it was for. "And that is?"

He leaned back into the couch cushions, thankful for once that Yuki-nee had won the argument about which couch to get. This one seemed to engulf a person when they lay back against it. It was normally an unnerving feeling for him to have something other than a cockpit encasing him. At that moment, he felt it was far more comforting than he would be willing to admit. "Hypoxia is a condition in which a part of the body is deprived of oxygen. Cerebral hypoxia deals specifically with the brain. It is common in cases where asphyxiation is attempted."

When he stopped, Yuki-nee waved her hand in a circular motion, and said nothing else. She wanted him to continue. "Cerebral hypoxia can lead to brain damage."

"Brain damage!?" Her surprise was instantaneous. She recoiled in shock, before leaning forward to look at him again. "Wait, wouldn't that have been a little more obvious by now!? It's been five days! The only thing you mentioned was the cold."

"The doctor didn't think it would be an issue, and I assessed that he didn't lose any motor or cognitive skills shortly after the incident. But, he has recently become highly irrational. It is a possibility we should not ignore. A CT scan will give us a better idea if damage in the brain exists."

Yuki-nee looked at him for a few minutes, and he did not look over at her to meet her gaze. He just wanted to sink into the unbelievably cushy couch and fall asleep. "Nao-kun" When she did speak, it sounded sad. She flopped back onto the couch, right next to him. He could feel her arm on his shoulder as she leaned over. "I didn't realize it was so serious. When the Princess-"

"Her Aldnoah factor is a variable we must consider in her case. Her incident seemed far more serious than Slaine's, but she recovered almost instantly with almost no noticeable repercussions. She was also shot twice in the landing castle, and survived. Those are two very serious injuries that a woman of her size has a poor chance of surviving from, yet she survived both. It is possible that her Aldnoah factor has some sort of regenerative capabilities. I was convinced she had died until I saw the broad casts of her look alike. For obvious reasons, no study will ever be conducted to prove or disprove my hypothesis. We should treat Seylum's recover as an isolated, lucky, incident." He had been thinking about her a lot, considering the angles. He was surprised to hear the explanation come out of him as seamlessly as it had. The issue had been on his mind. "It is rare for cases of attempted asphyxiation outside of well controlled environments to have no repercussions."

Yuki-nee leaned over towards him, till her head gently bumped the top of his, and her hair fell into his face. Inaho found he didn't mind. "It's possible then, but we won't know until we check. No use in being pessimistic till then." She hummed for a few seconds, a deep calming sound in the center of her throat, and he could feel the vibrations of it because of how close she was. "There was one more. Tell me you didn't save the worst one for last."

"A bronchoscopy, should it be deemed necessary, will assess any damage to the trachea, also a possible repercussion of the attempted suicide. If the trachea is injured, it is likely minor. A serious injury would have made itself known before now. Slaine has shown difficulty breathing, this could be a side effect of the pneumonia, if that is what he has, but difficulty breathing is a sign of a tracheal fracture. It is possible that if he does have a tracheal fracture, it could have led to pneumonia."

Yuki-nee nodded her head. "Can they fix that?"

Inaho closed his eye, and let himself lean just a hair closer to his sister. "Yes. A tracheal fracture can be fixed through surgery, or a minor one may heal itself with time. If surgery is necessary, we will have to wait. He hasn't eaten in five days, and his sleep patterns are sporadic at best. We also have not been able to procure medical records, though I have requested them from Mars. There could be preexisting conditions to consider. He is too weak right now, and without the proper documentation, should surgery be necessary, we are going into it blind."

"Sounds pretty hopeless." He opened his eye at that statement, and looked up at her. Her eyes were closed, and she looked like she could easily fall asleep right then and there. "Good thing he's got you on his side. You're pretty useful in hopeless situations." She reached down, and lightly grabbed his hand. "Nao-kun, I don't know why you're doing this, working so hard for that boy, but if it was anyone else, they probably would have given up today. He doesn't have any family that will care; there was no one who mourned him when he died. You might never convince me that he's a good person, and that he deserves the dedication you're giving him, but I will support your decisions."

He blinked up at her. "Does that mean you'll pick up Inko and Rayet tomorrow?"

The frown on her face was undeniable. She lifted her head and lightly thumped him with it. "Way to kill the mood, Einstein. Yes, that is what that means."

He settled back into the couch, and let his eye close. It was more comfortable than he'd given it credit in the past, but he rationalized that it was Yuki-nee's warmth that was likely far more comforting. "Yuki-nee,"

"Hm?"

"Thank you."


	13. Chapter 13

Something was humming. The sound was like wind, but also distinctly metallic. It was the first thing he noticed, and he couldn't place it. It didn't sound like the quiet humming of an aldnoah drive, or the nonexistent purr of a landing castle under foot. It also didn't sound like the din of a television, or the wind as it beat against his window. It didn't sound like any of those things.

The second thing he noticed was that his breathing was normal, and steady, not slow or fast, and not shallow. Deep heavy breaths in and out, that he only noticed because of how he had lacked them so recently. Had the whole thing been a dream? Had he been having nightmares? It had been terrifying, and so real, but now that he was awake and breathing normally, it was over. Just another one of the many demons wearing him down.

What a relief it was, to feel the steady up and down of his chest as his lungs filled with air. But the dream had felt so real, all of it terrifying, and utterly mortifying as well. He vividly remembered begging and pleading for the Princesses forgiveness, as if he deserved it. What a pitiful thing to want at this point, he was long past the point of deserving her forgiveness.

He let that thought fester in his head for a few moments, and wondered if he could just sink back into oblivion, to the nightmares and terrors that waited for him. But the world around him continued on, the humming he could not place continued. He could hear some small sounds, like someone shifting in place, their shoes softy scraping the ground. Was someone there? 'Of course', his mind supplied. There was always a guard now; the days of imaginary privacy were long over. The thought made him more inclined to just lay there and forget the world, to find solitude in any way that he could.

"Slaine" He recognized the voice. His emotions sneered 'Orange' while his brain reminded him, 'Kaizuka'. The want to escape, even into sleep that promised terror, was hard to ignore.

"Your breathing has normalized, and you are visibly frowning, both obvious indicators that you are awake and aware of your surroundings." Aware was a bad way of putting it, because he wasn't aware of anything, other than being awake. He felt heavy, and there was the undeniable urge to just sink back to sleep. Now that he knew Kaizuka was there, it was more tempting than it had been before. But Kaizuka usually got what he wanted, and Slaine found he was too tired to fight.

He opened his eyes, and the world bled into painful existence. Everything was much too bright. He winced, and as if waking from a deep slumber, he was suddenly aware of himself. He was in pain, his arms and legs hurt all over, as did his hands, his throat, his chest and back. The sensation startled him, that one minute he would feel almost nothing, and the other he was so aware of how broken he felt, and broken was the right word for it. He felt his pulse quicken, but his breathing remained stable, to stable. He looked down and there was something over his mouth. A respirator? Was that why he was breathing so normally? He didn't know, and though he wanted it off, he hesitated. What if it was making him breathe normally? He didn't want that to stop, but the thought of being connected to it, of having something else forcing air in and out of him was unnerving. There was only one person who'd ever done that, it seemed like a mockery to let some machine take her place.

Slaine eventually settled on raising his right hand slowly to inspect the instrument. Even the small movement hurt, and now that he could see his hand and arm in proper view, he noticed that there were large black bruises on it. Sudden realization hit him; he had not been dreaming. That pitiful display had happened. He'd pushed over the doctor, he'd banged on the door, he'd begged for Princess Asseylum, for anyone who had ever given him any kindness, and the guards had held him down as something was injected into him. Now that he thought about it, it had likely been a sedative. He hadn't exactly been rational.

"Excess force was used. I would not like a repeat." Slaine let his arm fall back down to his side, and shifted his gaze towards where Kaizuka's voice was. Kaizuka sat next to him, and Slaine noted that he looked a little more tired than usual. Slaine wondered if he was imagining the deeper black around Kaizuka's eye, but dismissed the thought. It struck him that Kaizuka's statement almost sounded like he was displeased, with what, Slaine couldn't tell. Likely, it was him. It made sense for Kaizuka to warn him not to make trouble again. Slaine didn't like the commanding tone that went with the statement, but he also did not want a repeat of the event. "You are being relocated."

Slaine wanted to ask where, but the machine around his mouth made the thought cumbersome. He realized a few seconds later that it didn't matter anyway. It made sense that they were going to foist him off on someone else after an incident like that. He'd been treading thin ice since the hanging incident; it was not surprising that he was being dumped on someone else now. He allowed his eyes to stray from Kaizuka. He only realized it at that moment, but they were in the medical room, the humming next to him the steady pumping of the generator he was connected to.

"We're moving you to a military hospital for treatment. You are to remain silent about your living conditions here, and should you in any way hinder your care, appropriate action will be taken. You are also to start eating. Regularly. This is no longer negotiable."

He wanted to ask what 'treatment' he was going in for. Some twisted part of him wondered if they still did lobotomies, but he dismissed that thought back down to the nightmares of his subconscious. There were plenty of real concerns, without him inventing some. He almost hoped 'treatment' was meant in the very loose sense of a bullet, but they wouldn't need to move him for that. No, if he knew Kaizuka -and he was pretty sure he did at this point- they were going to try and stitch him back together. Like a puzzle, Kaizuka was going to fit him together again: his worn out lungs, his bruised limbs, and whatever madness had taken over him mind. Like any problem, Kaizuka was going to get to the bottom of it, and as always, Slaine would be the worse off for it in the end.

He almost wished that bullet had killed Kaizuka, but then he remembered the woman, and he felt more loathsome and disgusting than before. He wondered how many more storms he was going to have to weather.


	14. Chapter 14

Her decision was likely a poor one, but as with many other poor decisions she had made in her life time -and she tried not to dwell on those - she had already decided, and committed herself.

She had expected some sort of interference from the people who actually worked in the hospital, but none of it came. She'd expected her card key not to work, but as with everything, it worked seamlessly. She went through doors and traversed the hospital as if she had worked in it for years, surprising herself with just how familiar she had become with the layout in such a short time. Not even the other staff gave a second glance to the obviously new nurse. It was likely a large enough hospital that not everyone knew each other.

The room in question was not hard to find. It was on the top floor, in an almost abandoned wing of the hospital, closest to the roof, where the helicopters flew patients in and out. The floor itself needed clearance, even to press the button on the elevator, but her card seamlessly allowed her that access. This was where they put the people no one discussed, and at that exact moment, it housed only one patient.

The armored guard at the door didn't give her any trouble. In fact, he acted as if he had seen her before, giving her a nod as he yawned. She entered the room quietly, but not without some sound. One lone eye turned to look at her, and the charade was most certainly up. She didn't care. The figure in the bed was enough to make her wish she hadn't come, but at the same time made her proud that she'd found the strength to do so. She wanted to cry, but tears were not going to come. She fisted her hands together in front of her, gripping one another till it almost hurt.

Then the second occupant of the room was in front of her, his one eye looking down on her without reproach. She should have known better, but she hadn't even noticed him get up, and hobble over to her. He had a cast on, and the crutch that was supposed to accompany him was missing. "Only authorized personnel are allowed here." The statement was unemotional, but she felt the slight tick of hesitation, something perhaps others would not notice. She looked past him, at the bed again, taking in every detail she could: the vacant eyes that stared at nothing, the even drone of a respirator, the long bony fingers and arms, the ugly bruises, the deep set of cheeks, and the sooty black splotches under still vibrantly colored eyes.

All too soon, the vision was over, and she was being gently escorted outside of the room. She remained silent, as the guard was ushered inside, and she was left with the other man. She still wanted to cry, but she let that thought leave her. She looked up and tried to smile, but it was difficult to do, and she imagined that she looked rather silly for trying.

"You should not be here." That one eye looked down at her, without scorn or force, but instead with curiosity.

She gave one soft bob of her head in response, before looking at him with confidence she didn't think she actually had. It was difficult to look past the eye patch, to think what lay beneath it, but she did not let that thought allow her to waver. "I should not, but I am glad that I came." The statement she would have liked to say next died on her lips. The only indication of its loss was a blink of her eyes, and the raising of her chin. "I have been able to find what you requested, though I regret the time that it has taken me. Even fulfilling such a simple request was something I knew so little about." She paused and held her hands in front of her, looking down for a half second before her eyes went back up again. "I find myself in a position to once again place myself in your capable hands. I am to spend some time on Earth, but not as myself. Your name was at the top of the list for capable, trustworthy retainers."

He blinked at her, and his head tilted just a hair to the side. "Those are kind words." She noted that he did not outright agree, and the smile that came to her face was almost a real one.

"I understand that you are quite busy, but I would be grateful if I could take some of the time that you have to spare."

"I am not as busy as you should be." This time, the smile that came to her face was real. She had not missed the slight concern in his voice. It was sometimes hard to tell, but she thought she was getting better at it, thought she had always been a fine judge of character.

"Leisure is unbecoming for a person in my position." He blinked at her, and it almost looked like amusement. She looked back at the closed door behind them, and whatever joy she felt fluttered away. "You should return." There was more she should have said, more that she wanted to say, but she did not give it voice. With Inaho, she never had to, but she knew that was no excuse. "I will return at a more appropriate time. Thank you for allowing me this."

"It is not much."

"It is not enough." She corrected. For a moment, she thought he agreed with her. "But I am thankful, and ashamed. I fear that this is one of many mistakes my decisions have led to."

Inaho's eyebrows tilted ever so slightly. "You are responsible for a planet, Seylum. He was never under your control, nor was he your responsibility."

She shook her head. "I am the Empress, everything is my responsibility."


	15. Chapter 15

"There's only so much pottery you can look at before it all starts to look the same." Inko mumbled, mostly to herself. She caught the reproachful look on Rayet's face, before the other girl turned back to the display.

Inko wondered if she was going to be reprimanded but as the silence lingered between them, she figured she wouldn't. She shrugged, and took a picture of the next piece with her phone, taking care to also get the description that went with the piece of pottery. Once the picture was taken, she took a good look at it to make sure it was legible, before saving it, and clicking away on her phone.

As she was typing in the address, Yuki wandered over to the two of them. She'd been taking a little longer to look at things than the other girls. Inko thought that might mean she was distracted - because Rayet studied everything for too long already - but she wasn't sure if it was a good idea to say anything.

She smiled over at Yuki as she came over, and then finished clicking out the message on her phone. "You've been on that thing all day. Just like Nao-kun." Yuki sighed in mock irritation. "At least you're getting some good pictures?"

Inko smiled over at Yuki and nodded before answering. "Right! You said Nao-kun hasn't been to the museum before, so I thought I'd take some pictures for him. It's too bad he couldn't make it." She'd started the statement energetically, but as she got to the end of it, Inko petered off. She stared at the screen a few more seconds, before looking over at Yuki. "I thought he'd take some time off to get better, but I guess it is always work, work, work with him, right?"

Yuki gave her a sympathetic smile, and was about to say something when Rayet spoke. "It's more like his brain will turn to mush if he sits still for too long. He needs something to focus on." Inko noticed how Yuki's eyes narrowed suspiciously in Rayet's direction, but Rayet gave no inclination that she was paying attention. After a few seconds of silence, where Yuki seemed to have difficulty saying anything, Rayet walked off to look at the next piece. Both Inko and Yuki watched her go.

"Sorry about that. I think she's-"

"Unhappy that Nao-kun stood you two up, right?" Yuki supplied. Inko blushed at the bold statement, looking to the side and shaking her head.

"He didn't. He had work, I get it. It sort of isn't fair for us to just show up and all..." She fiddled with her phone for a few minutes, wondering if she should delete her comment, or send it anyway. The more she looked at it, the dumber it seemed. Should she keep the smiley faces? Should she just delete it outright? Was he even interested in pottery?

Yuki sighed, but it sounded more abrupt than anything else. "It's really busy for him now, something came up." Yuki reached over and placed her hand on Inko's shoulder, and when Inko looked up at her this time, it was an actual smile on her face. "But you're always welcome. Neither of us want you to feel like having you two here is a burden. I know Nao-kun feels the same way."

Inko gave Yuki a sheepish smile. "It's hard to tell sometimes with him."

Yuki gave a great huff, and placed her hands on her hip. "You know him; he has a hard time saying what he means sometimes." The two of them started walking together towards where Rayet was looking at another ceramic pot. "But believe me when I tell you something really important came up."

They'd reached Rayet, and Inko had pressed send on the message, when Rayet spoke. "What?"

Neither of them had really been paying attention, so when Rayet spoke, they both looked over at her quizzically. When Yuki didn't ask the obvious question, Inko felt it was her job to do so. "What did you say Rayet?"

At the prompting, Rayet turned from the piece of pottery she was looking at, and stared at Yuki. "What was so important?"

Inko quickly pursed her lips at Rayet. "You heard the first time, it's confidential." She could understand the other girl's irritation, but it didn't make any sense to take it out on Yuki. It wasn't something Inko could condone.

Rayet gave her a passing glance before turning back to Yuki. "What is so important at work that it can't wait for him to recover from an attempted assassination? We are supposed to be at peace time, what is keeping him chained to his work?"

"Rayet!" Inko all but hissed, looking around to make sure that no one was listening to their conversation. She was happy to note that the elderly couple that had been in the room with them had moved on already, but it still made her squeamish to hear Rayet so blatantly state the question.

Rayet didn't even give her the time of day. Her eyes were squarely locked with Yuki. "Are there medical complications we aren't being told about? I knew he liked keeping secrets, but I didn't expect it from you too."

Instead of hardening, like Inko had expected, Yuki's eyes seemed to soften, and she gave Rayet a soft smile. "I know you're worried. I wish he could be here spending time with you two, but he can't right now."

If the statement was meant to placate Rayet, it didn't. Her eyes remained as intent as they had before. "It's about Mars, isn't it. Is he planning another trip?"

For a few seconds Yuki looked flabbergasted, before the calm look was back on her face, but Inko could easily note the hint of worry still lingering. "I certainly hope not."

Rayet's eyes never wavered. In fact, they intensified, and Inko wanted to placate her, to calm her down and get that burning coldness out of her face, but she didn't dare. "If he's dumb enough to go back, they really will kill him this time."

It hit Inko right then, that they couldn't be having that conversation, no matter what. Those were the sorts of things she had nightmares about, and Rayet was almost outright promising them, as if she didn't know that saying something makes it more real. On instinct, Inko hoped between the two of them, her eyes coming between Rayet's and Yuki's. Inko smiled sheepishly. "Ya know, it's about lunch time. We should go eat. Rayet gets cranky when she's hungry."

Taking the diversion for what it was, Yuki looked down at her. There was worry swimming in Yuki's brown eyes, and something else that Inko couldn't name, something aggressive. But in a blink, it was gone. Yuki was once again the composed commanding officer, and the sympathetic teacher. "Inko's right, it is about lunch time. We have a day pass to the museum, so we can come back after lunch." Yuki looked past Inko, over to Rayet, and her eyes weren't hard, but they were searching. "Or we can go to the beach. It's pretty quiet there, I'm sure we could have some privacy."

Inko's eyes widened. This was not what they need to be doing. This was not what they should be discussing. They should have been having a good time, and enjoying themselves, and looking at the dumb pottery that Rayet liked so much. She shifted her eyes to look over at Rayet, but the other girl was no longer looking at them. Instead, Rayet was gazing over her shoulder at the pottery, her eyes cloudy, and her face blank. "We can get something to eat, but I'd pick a museum over a beach any day."

Inko wasn't exactly sure what that meant, but she'd take what she could get. She gave Yuki a sheepish smile and tried to ignore the obvious irritation on the older woman's face. She reached over and took Rayet's hand. "What do you want for lunch, Rayet? Or should we let Yuki pick? I'm sure she knows what's good, right, Yuki?"

When Inko looked back, Yuki was all composure again. It was enough to remind her that she was dealing with a Kaizuka. "Sure, I could suggest some places."


	16. Chapter 16

Slaine hadn't realized how much he'd missed unrecycled air before he was wheeled out of the compound. It struck him in that exact moment - his hands cuffed together, one of his ankles cuffed to the gurney, being wheeled out to an awaiting chopper - that he likely hadn't had an honest moment to just enjoy natural air in a very long time. During the war, he'd been to worried, running here, looking there, worry, worry, worry. The last time might have been as far back as when his father was alive. He couldn't recall when was the last time he'd taken even a moment to just savor the simple pleasure that clean, crisp, fresh air was.

As he looked up at the beautiful blue expanse of sky above him, he realized that he probably never would. His current predicament hardly seemed appropriate for taking in something so fundamentally simple, that he hadn't even contemplated its loss before. He looked up at the sky, and thought of just how big it was, how limitless the sky had felt, and how small his little window with bars was. He always thought he'd been good at adapting to new situations, to places and people and languages and societies, and whole other worlds. Perhaps he'd always been wrong about that. Maybe it had just meant he'd never really had much to begin with, and he'd never honestly contemplated those losses, because he'd never had them to begin with.

The thought should have been something he denied, but it rang within him like sound escaping the hollow chasm of a bell. When he took away his father, or the Princess, what had he ever really had? The air around him, the sky above him, the earth below him, empty rooms without personal possessions, and a lack of familiar faces.

He thought of his father, toiling away on his research day and night, not eating or sleeping, just working and working and working. It struck him that he and his father where actually very similar. His father had needed something to fill that void, that endless yearning for things that he'd already lost, or had never had to begin with. It had been such a fervent need that he'd wasted away trying to fill it with research. Slaine wondered if his father had been able to fill that void, if the culmination of his professional work had led him to euphoria, or dread. There always had to be something afterwards, something had to continue filling that void. Maybe it hadn't been so sudden or strange that his father had died when he did. Maybe, in some cosmic sense of balance, the void, that need, had killed him. Had he not wanted to live past the completion of his research, the culmination of all he'd worked for? Slaine certainly didn't, and he hadn't even completed it. In childhood, he'd always seen his father as distant, smart, unreachable. Maybe in reality they were far more similar than he could have ever imagined.

He almost laughed, and felt his hands gripping at his chest. The familiar weight of his father's necklace in his hand felt far too heavy for him to comprehend. And he had entrusted that weight to Princess Asseylum, without realizing what it meant. He'd given her the most important part of his life, and expected her to be able to fill that emptiness. What a fool he'd been, to weigh her down with such a burden. She'd saved his miserable life, and he'd given her loyalty she didn't need, and hope that she would be able to fix something that had been broken from the start.

His view of the sky ended as they approached the helicopter, and the guards lifted him up into its hold. Kaizuka was a few steps behind, gracefully vaulting himself into the craft to sit beside the gurney. Slaine was aware of it, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was the clean crisp air around him, and the play of wind on his face. Right then and there, he had that, and it was so important that he wanted to cry.

He wished, more honestly than he'd ever wished for anything before, that he would not be making the return trip.


	17. Chapter 17

He'd been contemplating it previously, but after he spoke with the staff at the hospital, Inaho decided that it was necessary to dismiss Slaine's current physician. Find someone far more suitable would be one of his next tasks. He had no doubt that the report in front of him was largely due to negligence. The doctor was not the only culprit, some of that responsibility remained squarely on Inaho's shoulders, but his internal irritation was not going to keep him from making the proper decision. Inactivity was to blame for the report, both his and the doctor in charge of Slaine's care.

A more assertive doctor seemed like the proper course of action. With the current physician, Inaho had gone out of his way to be accommodating, and to listen to his assessments. He had also not dedicated sufficient time to Slaine's care. Initially, Inaho had only visited once every two weeks, for only thirty minutes per visit. He had left the primary concerns of Slaine's care to both the physician, and the staff. It had seemed at the time that Slaine would be more than capable of handling himself in such a situation. In fact, Inaho could perhaps categorize his lack of investment, in the firmly held belief he'd retained from the war; Slaine Troyard was well capable of handling himself, and his unpredictable nature had continually frustrated Inaho, often leaving him on the receiving end of some rather unsavory situations. It had only been after the attempted suicide -something he had not anticipated- that Inaho had started to take a vested interest in the situation. He should have known better than to leave such a delicate situation in the hands of others, but at the prospect of tending to Slaine, Inaho had found he had very little that he felt he could add to the process.

Now, at the stage where he found himself, Inaho was sure that an assessment of his priorities was in order. He was finding it less difficult than he would have originally thought to make his decisions.

The CT scan had come back negative for signs of cerebral hypoxia, a very good sign. The x-rays had come back with definite visual confirmation of liquid in the lungs. The doctors were assessing it as pneumonia, and said that the diagnosis was rather obvious due to the manner in which Slaine had been breathing. The bronchoscopy -which Slaine's physician had deemed unnecessary, and the doctor in charge of the case had insisted on regardless- showed a slight tracheal fracture. It was small, likely to heal on its own given time, but it was possible it had led to the shortness of breath, and the pneumonia, both of which aggravated the other. Surgery could be performed to repair the tracheal fracture, but Slaine was likely to weak for the procedure. He was malnourished, and in high probability of developing refeeding syndrome. The doctors handling the case had expressed concerns that he had been sedated at all in his state.

The original plan was to only keep Slaine in the military hospital till preliminary tests had been completed, and a plan for follow up care had been drafted. Under advice of the hospital's administration, that plan was being modified. None of the doctors wanted to risk complications of refeeding syndrome; it would only cause difficulties for his already waning health. It stood to reason that it was better to keep Slaine under consistent watch for future issues. Inaho was quick to agree with their assessments. He was also of the opinion that the hospital room was much nicer than the observation room in the complex, and that the large window that let in ample amounts of sunlight and a soft breeze would not be a negative addition unless Slaine somehow decided that jumping was a prerogative. Inaho did not intend on giving him such an opening, even if Slaine somehow found the strength and motivation to do anything other than lay there blank eyed and unresponsive.

In the months where Inaho had spent one thirty minute session with Slaine every two weeks, he had grown accustomed to being ignored. Those had been intentional dismissals, deliberate refusals to interact or show interest in anything mentioned. Slaine had gotten quite good at it over time, but Inaho had been sure that a gradual shift would happen eventually. He had been surprised that the addition of Yuki-nee to the staff had been one of the leading factors.

Slaine's current state of being was not like that at all. It was far worse. Before it had been a deliberate refusal to cooperate. Slaine's interactions now were entirely apathetic, not combative. Lethargy was now the norm, and though he took instructions relatively well, answering questions and eye contact was nonexistent. There was none of the anger that had been reported in Slaine's down time, and none of the hostile glares that Inaho had grown so used to.

Slaine did seem to appreciate that Inaho had him placed in the bed closest to the window. In fact, with the sun shining on him, Slaine almost seemed happier and calmer. It reminded Inaho that Slaine had likely spent a large part of his life stuck in a sophisticated tin can, with only artificial light. It was an obvious thing to think about now, but something he had not considered before.

How exactly did one go about taking away another person's misery? It was certainly hard work making oneself happy, let alone another individual. Inaho had almost always been the master of his own world, in charge of his own emotions and situations. It seemed like a daunting task to simply rid an entirely different being of misery.

As Inaho set the reports aside onto the bedside table, he looked over at Slaine. Sunlight washed over his face, and his alarmingly blank eyes remained closed. His breathing remained stable, and low enough to indicate sleep. Inaho wondered if perhaps the first step to that process, to the unimaginable task of eliminating misery, even for one person, was to be observant. Slaine enjoyed sunlight. A very rational, obvious conclusion, which he had not previously come to. In fact, his initial thought had been that since he had lived so long in space, that he might not need it. He wasn't sure if need was the word for it, but it was certainly something he seemed to enjoy. It was something to note, something that should have been obvious from the onset. Before berating himself any further, Inaho reminds himself that social interactions were not his forte; they were Yuki-nee's. He was going to have to work harder from now on.


	18. Chapter 18

Yuki had just set down the snacks for their impromptu girls' movie night, when the door bell rang. It was a little late, around seven in the evening, and it was a little odd to get a visitor at that hour. Usually, if one of the neighbor ladies had something to tell her, they came over in the mornings, or caught her right as she was coming home. Yuki thought it was odd that anyone would be at her door at this hour, but she didn't wonder too much about it. When she opened the door, she wondered if she should have.

There was a girl, standing prim and proper at her door step. Yuki raked her eyes over the girl, thought about how exactly she was standing, and how exactly she was holding her hands, folded gently in front of her. She also took note of how she felt like she might have met the girl once before, but it was difficult to say that she actually had. It was a sinking suspicion that came over her, but Yuki reminded herself that she left probabilities to Inaho. Usually.

In only a matter of seconds from opening the door, Yuki smiled down at the young woman in front of her. "Can I help you?"

The girl, for her part, seemed composed and refined. She smiled up at Yuki serenely. Yuki tried not to check off another mark on her mental ledger. "I apologize for coming over so late. Is Inaho at home?" The girl asked. She didn't presume to look past Yuki into the house, like Inko usually did. The girl's green eyes were squarely, politely, set upon Yuki.

Yuki gave a sheepish smile, and shook her head. "Na, he's staying at the office tonight." She saw obvious concern filter through the girl's eyes. "Are you a friend of my brother?"

She had a feeling she was pushing her luck. She could hear Inko inside chattering away at Rayet, and the musical intro to the Disney movie that they'd picked to start the evening with. Instead of focusing on that, Yuki paid close attention to the girl in front of her keeping her posture unassuming, and casual. The girl's eyes softened at the statement. She raised one of her delicate little hands up to her heart, before placing it back down to clasp with the other. Yuki did not miss the glisten of a wedding band on the girl's hand. "I consider him a dear friend."

Yuki quickly decided there was no point in pursuing this line of inquiry. She was already pretty sure what was going on. She had mixed feelings about it, but that didn't stop her from what she was about to do next. She smiled down warmly at the girl. "Any friend of Nao is a friend of mine! Come on in!" She pushed the door open a little wider, and beckoned the young lady inside.

She noticed some hesitation, a slight delay in movement, a soft downward look before green eyes were back on her, but it didn't matter much. The young lady came inside, and Yuki closed the door after her. "We were just starting a movie. You're more than welcome to join us! Though, Inko and I always sing along to the songs, so you'll just have to grin and bear it. You're welcome to sing along with us!" Yuki smiled at the girl, and placed a hand on her small shoulder, ushering her deeper into the apartment.

The girl hesitated for a few seconds, taking in the appearance of the apartment, before being herded into the living room. Rayet and Inko were already seated on the living room sofa, munching on snacks. Yuki had no intention of letting the girl out of her sight. No polite refusals were going to do. "Inko, Rayet, this is Inaho's friend, she's going to be joining us."

The girl politely nodded her head at the two other girls, and Yuki did not miss the softening of those green eyes when they fell on Rayet. "Please, call me Lucia. It is a pleasure to meet you."

If Rayet suspected something, it was well overshadowed by Inko's blush, and instant look of disappointment. It was enough to make Yuki feel bad. She had wished several times that Inaho had just fallen in love with Inko. Inko would have been a perfect girlfriend for him. It really wasn't fair.

"We're having a girl's night Lucia! Inko and I started the tradition ages ago. She used to be our neighbor. Back then, we always started with a Disney movie, then moved onto Ghibli, after that came some light romance, and if anyone was awake after that, we put on a tearjerker!" She motioned to the screen, where the opening score of Beauty and the Beast was playing. "Of course we do switch it up from time to time. Every now and then we both just wanted a good cry."

Yuki looked over at the two girls on the couch. Inko was pouting a little, but she'd plastered a smile on her face, and was getting up to greet their newest addition. Rayet, was watching the movie, sending occasional half glances over at the other two. Yuki had a feeling it was more on behalf of Inko, than any sense of suspicion.

As Inko approached, Lucia shook hands with her, and smiled, before nodding over at Rayet. Once that was done, Inko ushered their newest addition over to the couch, chattering at her, as if she wasn't upset at all.

And later that night, when young Lucia would insist that she should be getting home, Yuki would counter that it was far too late for a young girl to go home on her own. She would insist that Lucia stayed the night, for her own safety, and that of her driver, who really shouldn't be driving out this late anyway. She would also guarantee that she would be happy to drive Lucia home the next morning.

Yuki wasn't sure she'd get a restful sleep that night, but it was a girl's night. It would be worth it.


	19. Chapter 19

It was odd to get a call from his sister so early in the morning. Yuki-nee liked to sleep in, she wasn't usually up this early. The night guard had already gone home, and Inaho had dismissed the day guard to stand outside the hospital room. One of the nurses had already come in to check on Slaine, but Inaho was hesitant to let her do anything to invasive. Slaine was still asleep, and Inaho was of the opinion he hadn't gotten enough sleep lately. It was a good sign to see him sleeping so normally. It almost seemed like a return to before the whole debacle, when Slaine could sleep all day. Now looking back on it, that had been a clear indicator of emotional distress. Inaho would need to keep a closer eye on things.

With only him and Slaine in the room, it had been very quiet. He'd been fiddling with his phone, seated in a chair by the bed, when the obnoxious ring tone Yuki-nee had assigned for herself shattered the silence of the hospital room. Slaine woke with a start, and it was only the respirator that kept his breath even and strong.

Inaho did not consider that long, instead, he pressed the call button to summon the nurse, stood from his chair. He hobbled a little ways away from the bed, but not far enough away that he couldn't get at Slaine if it became necessary. He then answered his phone, pressing it to his ear. "Early morning for you."

The other person on the line chuckled, and Inaho easily recognized his sister's voice. The chuckle then shifted to a groan. "I can get up early when I need to!"

"Did you need to?" Slaine's eyes still held that glossy look, like he wasn't awake yet, or that he wasn't yet aware of where he was. He looked dazed, and a bit confused. Inaho's eyes shifted to the little red call button next to the bed, and turned away.

Yuki-nee did not answer his question. Sometimes, she did that. He wasn't always sure what it meant. "We had a visitor last night. A friend of yours."

Inaho's mind went straight to the day before, and his sudden visitor. Seylum had disguised herself as a nurse, he hoped she had picked something appropriate to cloak herself as this time. For a brief moment, he wondered if he had made the proper decision by staying at the hospital overnight. Seylum did not do house calls for nothing. He hoped she hadn't been in any real danger, though she should have had more guards if that was the case. Inaho dismissed that line of thought as irrelevant. If he went to long without answering Yuki-nee, she would grow suspicious.

"Another well wisher?" He'd had quite a few of those. Nina had sent a get well e-card, which had been inappropriately cheerful and loud. Calm had mentioned that he was going to fly in as soon as he was finished with a project. Marito had sent a bottle of something -he surmised it was for Yuki, and not for him, and of course Inko and Rayet had flown down to see about his condition. Even if Yuki-nee was talking about Seylum, this was the safest response, given the various possible scenarios.

The bark of laughter on the other end of the phone was not encouraging. "Somehow I doubt that." Inaho wasn't sure how to interpret that statement, so he chose not to respond. Instead waiting for her to continue. She knew him well, because she didn't pause for long. "I know you're 'busy' but you should come home. She's still here. I plied her with ice cream, and animated movies, and then melodrama. She cried at the ending of Ponyo! Who does that? It's happy!" He could visualize Yuki-nee balking for a few seconds, before she cleared her throat. "She's here, and I'll be keeping her here as long as I can, but I think she actually has things to do. She wants to see you."

It was Seylum, and Yuki-nee knew it. The disguise must not have been that good. "Inko also says hi. You should spend time with her, Nao. She's worried about you."

Inaho shifted his eyes back over towards Slaine. His eyes had slid shut again, but it was obvious that he was not sleeping. Just lethargic, as usual. It seemed irresponsible to just leave. "Progress remains minimal. Leaving prematurely seems unwise."

He heard a frustrated sign from the other end of the phone. "Suit yourself Nao. I just think this will be important."

Inaho found he couldn't argue with her, not that he would -he always seemed to lose the real arguments. "You're probably right." He let that statement hang in the air for a few moments, before he decided his next line. "Do not cook for her. We want her opinions of our hospitality to be positive."

There was a distinctive choking sound on the other end of the phone, and an irritated "Nao!" exploded from the phone before he was able to press the disconnect button. He almost expected her to call back, but as his phone remained silent, he slipped back into the seat next to Slaine's bed side. The nurse would be arriving any moment for blood work, and with Slaine's breakfast of milk. He had been pleased to read over the medical report Seylum had given him, to find that Slaine showed no indicators of lactose intolerance. That was another complication they did not need.

"The nurse will be here soon."

Slaine did not answer. Inaho hadn't expected him to. He was looking over the machines Slaine was hooked up to when he did speak, and Inaho had not expected it. "That was the woman." Inaho had not anticipated being answered. For a few seconds, he let his mind focus on the fact that Slaine had said something, and it had been mostly unprompted, which was rare. He'd been about to say something, to clarify Slaine's statement, when Slaine spoke again. "She's loud. Nothing like you." The statement almost seemed like it was meant to be an insult, but Inaho wasn't sure who was being insulted. Inaho chose to disregard it.

"She is forward." Of all the things he could say about his sister, that was the first thing that came to mind. She still baffled him from time to time, but he doubted that was any fault of her own.

"You should treat her better."

"You are in no position to be telling me how to treat others." The statement was out of Inaho's mouth before he even considered it. There was too much to mull over, to many possibilities about how Slaine had somehow come to that conclusion. None of them gave him much comfort. The most obvious of those many conclusions, was that Inaho had not been the only one watching. He didn't know if he liked that thought.


	20. Chapter 20

He missed that at one point in his miserable incarceration, Kaizuka had visited for only thirty minutes, once every two weeks. At the time, he'd hated it. Now, he would gladly go back to it.

Kaizuka had been there for the transfer, making sure that he'd been moved safely, securely, and he noted, secretly. Slaine had his suspicions about that, but he let them go. It made sense that he would be a wanted man out in the normal world. He wondered if the whole 'for your own protection' argument was valid in his case. Kaizuka had never used it before. Slaine wished he could test it, but the impulse only lasted a few seconds. He was having a hard time feeling strongly about much of anything, other than Kaizuka, who he would rather like to have gone.

Kaizuka had stayed that whole day, listening patiently to nurses and doctors alike, both in and outside of his earshot. Slaine now knew a lot more about his actual health than he had in months. His doctor at the prison hadn't ever been forthcoming with diagnostics or explanations. He had preferred threats and intimidation instead of explanations. He obviously had not anticipated rational responses, which Slaine admitted was a fair estimate of his mental state. He'd seemed rather used to the idea that Slaine had little say so in his own care. To be fair, Slaine had never asked either. He didn't care, it had just been one more spiteful thing that had been denied to him. Now that he had some of that information, it was easy to see how little it mattered. Sure, he could go out of his way to sabotage the whole situation, but that felt like so much effort. He was still spiteful, that hadn't gone away, but it was dulling. Almost every time they'd fought, Slaine had lost in some way. Even when he'd sunk a bullet in Inaho's still functioning head, he'd been the loser. He'd only had victories when he'd played his cards right, when he'd waited, and been patient. Even then, his victories had been few and far between. Some petty attempt to refuse care would likely earn him a feeding tube and heavy mediation. He was numb enough already, he didn't want more. He'd wait and bide his time till the opportune moment, when an obvious solution presented itself.

Kaizuka had spent the night, sleeping in the adjoined bed. Unable to sleep for most of the night, Slaine had laid awake, wondering what it would feel like to walk over and wring Kaizuka's scrawny neck. It was in poor taste, even though he hated Kaizuka, suffocation was a horrible way to go. He also wondered if he had the nerve to even try such a thing. He'd only ever killed for the princess, and only ever used bullets or Kats to do so. They'd been easy, and he'd still done it wrong. He couldn't even hang himself, and he was more than willing to be dead. It was exhausting to consider, and hypothetical at best. He could still feel the cuff on his ankle, ensuring that he did not move from that bed. Kaizuka slept softly, safely, next to him. If he cared enough, it would make him mad. At his current predicament, he was more interested in trying to forget Kaizuka's presence, in favor of gazing out the window of the room. There was no moon out that night, and it should have been perfect for seeing stars, but the lights of the hospital glowed beneath him, and obscured the view. All he could see was inky blackness, with lingering hints of blue. Stars would have been better, but he settled easily enough. It was better than the small window in his cell.

The next morning, Kaizuka was still sitting there, clicking away on his phone. Slaine wanted him gone. Kaizuka had people that actually mattered in his life; he had the Empress, and he had the woman. Slaine was sure he had more, but those were the only two he was aware of. Kaizuka had a support group, people that would help him if he needed it, people that he could rely on implicitly, and he was spending his time clicking away on some damn machine, sitting in a hospital room, babysitting a suicidal mass murderer who would much rather be put out of his misery.

It was enough to make Slaine genuinely angry. He'd felt unwavering lethargy and apathy ever since waking up after that psychotic episode, but the sudden burst of anger did not dissipate like all the other emotions did. He wanted Kaizuka to leave. In fact, he wanted all of them to leave; the guards, the nurses, the doctors, all of them, but Kaizuka most of all, because he should have just pulled the god damned trigger. Shouldn't have been the 'better man', shouldn't have been 'rehabilitating' him, shouldn't be investing time and energy and sacrificing whatever else he was shoving to side lines. Slaine thought of the woman, how she openly hated him, how she had probably cried at Kaizuka's bed side, and he wanted to scream. There wasn't anyone in his life that hate the people who'd hurt him. There wasn't anyone that was going to come and cry at his bed side, and if there was he damn well wouldn't be ignoring them. He wouldn't have waltzed right back into the room after the Empress herself came to see him, like Kaizuka had.

Kaizuka just kept clicking away, his fingers moving at rapid speed, his eye glued to the screen of his phone. Slaine thought - making sure to look anywhere but at Kaizuka - that he could have reached over and choked the other man right then and there. It wouldn't have mattered, the guard would have heard the commotion, and they'd have pried him off. Kaizuka might have had a set of bruises around his neck to prove it, but it wouldn't matter in the end. The woman would hate him more, which he deserved, and Kaizuka might actually go away.

He could do it. As long as he was fast, he'd catch Kaizuka unaware. There was no real danger in it, Kaizuka wouldn't really get hurt; it took too long to asphyxiate someone. His situation would get worse, but how worse could it get? Someone's eye was on him every second. Someone awake and aware was always in the room with him. Even air was being pumped in and out of his lungs artificially. How worse could it get if he was to wrap his hands around Kaizuka's neck and tighten?

He wouldn't. Slaine knew that, but he couldn't keep the thought out of his mind.

There was a small knock on the door. He recognized it as one of the nurses, she had a particular wedding band that wrapped on the door in a certain way. He continued staring off into the distance, past the walls and the eyes and the cuff on his ankle chaining him down.

The door slowly opened. He smelt roses.

His eyes were on the door in a heartbeat. Arranged simply in an elegant glass vase, were fifteen blue roses. He was somehow aware that Kaizuka had gotten up, and ambled over towards the nurse, that they were talking in soft tone that he should have understood, but could not. He couldn't keep his eyes off of the flowers, or the hand written card that stuck out of them.

_Blue roses have two meanings. Please believe in whichever gives you peace._

_-E_


	21. Chapter 21

As Inaho walked up the stairs to the roof of the hospital, and opened the door to the open air, it occurred to him that it felt like a long time since he'd been out of the hospital. Realistically it had only been about 24 hours, but that did not diminish the ease that came with going outside into the warmth and the sun. What an inopportune moment to come to that conclusion now.

Inaho filed the thought away for later, pulled out his cell phone, and dialed 1. Yuki-nee had insisted on being number 1 in his phone. No one else had a number assignment but her, since she had insisted. The phone rang for far too long, a good indicator that he was being impatient. He noted that, and took a slightly deeper breath than normal.

He could hear the clicking of the phone, indicating that Yuki-nee was answering, and before long he heard her voice clearly through the devise. "Nao? Are you on your way back?"

"Yuki-nee, is our guest still there?"

He had just a moment to imagine her gawking before getting the expected response. "Oh no you don't. You are not having this very important conversation with our very important guest over a cell phone line. Nao, you know better than that. Plus it's rude. Very, very rude. If she was like, I don't know, in the United States or somewhere _really far away_, maybe, but she isn't. She's at our house."

"Yuki-"

"Hold on, hold on. How about this. You, come here, and I take Inko and Rayet back to their hotel, and go there. That way you two can have your privacy-" He didn't like the way she said that. "and you don't have to worry about someone doing something they shouldn't."

It shouldn't have surprised him how accurately she summed that up. "Yuki-"

"You can get a taxi from the hospital instead of taking the bus. It'll be faster!"

"How long have you been planning this?" He asked with just a hint of suspicion in his voice. She wouldn't miss it.

She sounded pleased with herself. "Since you didn't come running when I called the first time. Nao, are you really that worried?"

It took him to long to answer. She knew what he would say already, didn't she? "I will take your suggestion. Be ready to go when I arrive. It would be rude to leave our guest alone." He paused for just a beat, "Be on time today, Penivia." then quickly disconnected the phone as he could hear her groan in irritation on the other end.

He let the hand holding his phone fall to his side. From this high up, he could see a good part of the city around them, and the ocean in the distance. It wasn't a big place, where they'd ended up, but that was intentional. An island was an ideal place to keep Slaine Saazbaum Troyard captive. It didn't have all the same amenities that their last home had, but it wasn't a bad place either. Life seemed slower here.

Inaho took a few more seconds to look at the surroundings, the ocean in the distance, the breeze as it jostled his hair, the salt in the air. It was nice.

He quickly turned back around, and headed inside. The only destination in mind was the hospital room where he'd spent the last day. His bag was still there, and this would be an opportune time to switch out his dirty clothes.

He entered the hospital room without knocking, nodding in respect to the guard as he went in. The nurse was still there, taking blood work from Slaine, who was giving her no trouble at all. His gaze was still on the blue roses, now placed on his bedside table. Inaho looked at them for a few moments as well. Blue was not a natural color for roses. It would have made more sense to send something more common. The rather vague card sticking out of the arrangement likely had a lot to do with it.

So Count Slaine Saazbaum Troyard knew, and understood the language of flowers. Inaho was having a hard time deciding what to make of that. It seemed like an entirely trivial fact, but he found it perplexing. Most men did not pay a lot of attention to flower meanings. There weren't flowers on Vers. In fact, he had found at least a few of the Counts he had interacted with had some form of paranoia about organic earth life forms.

There was much to consider on the matter, but he would ponder that later. He greeted the nurse with a nod of his head, and went to retrieve his bag. Slaine did not look up as he passed by. His eyes were still entirely on the flowers. That seemed relevant, and he wasn't sure exactly how relevant. Yuki-nee was always telling him how poorly he interpreted these things.

His eyes settled on the card. "Two meanings." The nurse was looking at him, but Slaine didn't look away from the flowers. Inaho wasn't sure if he had expected him to. He let it go.

"I will be back." He turned towards the door, and left.


	22. Chapter 22

The door shut, and the only sound that rang out in the room was the soft even thumping of Kaizuka's shoes as he walked down the hallway.

"Where do you think he's going?" The nurse asked quietly, her eyes still on the closed door. She wondered if the guard would come in when she left, and decided that she'd best stay for a little longer. Supervision under gunpoint didn't seem like a very nice prospect. She finished filling up the vial of blood, and carefully extracted the needled from the pale flesh of his arm.

"Only one for now." She said, when she didn't get a response. "We'll need to take more later, to see how you're doing, but only the one for now." His green eyes were still on the blue roses she'd delivered from the ground floor. She smiled. "They're pretty, aren't they?" She made a small 'humph' sound to herself. "The supervisor didn't think I should bring them up. Something about how no one was suppose to know there was a patient on the 9th floor. It caused quite a ruckus you know. They might move you." She didn't get a response, but she went about her work none the less, putting her supplies away. "It won't be so bad though. The room they're thinking about faces the cliffs to the west. The window there has a beautiful view of the ocean." She paused for just a beat. "You'd like it."

When she'd finished, her eyes lingered on the door, and she thought of the guard behind it, with the large imposing gun in hand. She scowled, and walked over to the chair Kaizuka had been sitting in before. "I should be going, but I'll keep you company a little longer."

They fell into silence. Her eyes lingered on him for a few moments, before she turned her attention to the instruments beside him. She almost didn't hear when he spoke, because it was so quiet. "How long have you been here?"

She smiled, and looked over at him. He hadn't stopped looking at the flowers, but she could tell he was paying close attention to her. Maybe for the first time. "Five months. I've learned a lot. Most Vers and Terran medicine is the same, but Terran technologies are better. I didn't realize how much better until Princess Lemrina returned to Vers able to walk. I've always known at least the little things, it was important I'd know just in case! Now, I'm learning more." She stopped, and shifted her eyes back to the door. She knew she wouldn't be over heard, but she looked at it warily, and lowered her voice. "It's one of the Emperor's new projects. He's sent lots of us. I don't really know what he wants. He just told me to learn, so that's what I'm doing."

His eyes were on her now. She'd never realized how much his eyes looked like the sea before. "Why here?" The question was soft. He seemed to mirror her tone of caution.

She blushed just a bit, fisted her hands in her pants, and looked away. "I asked to be here. I didn't think it would matter, but I guess it did."

"Does-"

"No. You're the only Terran that knows now." She sighed. "It's complicated. Since I was around the Empress so much, and because I'm too young. I had to use a devise that changed how I looked. Actually, I probably shouldn't have come at all, but I wanted to. It was selfish, but the Empress supported it."

The two of them fell into silence. Slaine was looking at the flowers again, his eyes rather vacant. She was about to get up and leave, when he spoke softly again. "How long has the war been over?"

She blinked at him in surprise, before her face softened. "Nine months." She hesitated, and the words that came out of her mouth were whispered "You were executed six months ago."

He blinked at her in confusion for a few moments, before he looked back at the flowers. He was smiling, even if it was only a little one. "You shouldn't have sent these. You could get in trouble."

She scowled at him lightly. "I wanted to. Besides, the worst that will happen is I'll get moved." She huffed, and pursed her lips. "There are lots of hospitals on Earth."

He looked over at her reproachfully, and whispered the next set of words, though she could easily feel the harshness behind them. "You're a spy. The consequences could be much worse."

She thought about pointing out that he really wasn't in any position to be telling her to be careful, but huffed, and decided against it. Instead, she pouted. "A thank you would have been nice."

He sighed, but it didn't sound tired, it sounded better than that. She couldn't help the smile that came to her face. "Thank you for the beautiful flowers."

"You're welcome." She shifted her eyes to the door. "I've probably said too much already, but if there's anything else, I might be able to help."

He hesitated for a moment. She could see him contemplating the question, how much he wanted to involve her more. She could tell he didn't like the thought, but she let him think on it. When he finally did speak, it was hesitant, and unsure, as if he was afraid of the answer. "Is Harklight alive?"

She bit her lower lip, and looked away. "Yes. He survived. But, the last time I saw him, he wasn't well. If he has died while I was here, I haven't been informed."

She couldn't tell if the statement made him any happier, or if it troubled him more. It might have been better to lie to him, but she preferred not to, when she had the option. Tentatively, she reached up and touched his hand. He didn't look at her, but that was alright. "I'm going to go now. Rest, and eat for goodness sake." She rose from the chair, and turned on her heals towards the door. As she reached for the handle, she looked back at him. His eyes were squarely on her, and she smiled. "I'll be back."


	23. Chapter 23

Things were amiss when he arrived at the house he and Yuki-nee shared. For one, Yuki-nee was still doing her hair when he arrived. Second, Rayet, Inko and 'Lucia' -as he had been informed- were sitting on the couch, watching a movie. Neither Rayet nor Inko looked prepared to leave any time soon. In fact, their state of comfort seemed to imply that they had not been informed of their timely departure. His suspicions were only confirmed when Yuki-nee waved a casual goodbye to the entire room, gave him a thumbs up, accompanied by a grin he had come to categorize as cheeky, and walked out of the apartment. He'd almost followed her out, but Inko was talking to him, and even he knew that would be incredibly rude.

"I got to make breakfast!" Inko was saying. She'd gotten up from the couch when he'd arrived, and was currently standing in front of him. The dress she was wearing was very nice, and likely expensive, given the brand.

He was going to say something to her comment, when Rayet murmured from the couch. "She cooks back at the apartment." Inaho blinked over at her, to see that Rayet was talking to Lucia, who for whatever reason seemed to be listening intently. He dismissed the very churlish idea that she had come here to visit him, but paid attention to what Lucia answered.

"You don't cook, Rayet?"

"Not a big thing where I'm from."

"That sounds nice. Your food is preferable to Yuki-nee's." Inko seemed unhappy that he had not immediately answered her, instead shifting his attention elsewhere. Her smile -which had not gone away- widened a little when he answered her.

"Yuki isn't that bad at cooking. You should see the messes Rayet makes!" Inko smiled, and looked over at Rayet. Inaho couldn't help but smile at her. She'd noticed that his mind had been elsewhere, and gone out of her way to encourage him. Or he thought so. Maybe she was just childishly teasing Rayet. It was hard to tell.

Inko looked over at Rayet, seated on the couch, and smiled sweetly. Rayet shrugged and looked away. "I'd be better at it if I cared."

Lucia's green eyes didn't leave Rayet's face. "You don't care about good food?"

Both Inko and Rayet looked over at Lucia at the strange comment, but Inko shook it off fastest. "You should care, Rayet! Good food is the way to anyone's heart!"

Rayet shrugged, and looked over at Lucia in what Inaho would deem suspicion, before shrugging again, as if she'd forgotten she did it the first time. "There's no need to make it yourself if you can just buy good food."

Inko scowled, but Inaho spoke first. He had a feeling he would have a hard time getting anything in on these three. He figured when an opportunity presented itself, it was ideal to take it. "Preparing your own food is more economical, and food personally prepared can be made to individual specifications. It is cheaper, wastes less, and can be made much healthier than food that is pre packaged, or made for mass market consumption."

Rayet rolled her eyes, and shrugged. "It isn't like we're starving." If anyone else noticed how Lucia's eyes lowered at that statement, no one mentioned it. Inaho certainly let the observation go unvoiced.

Inko, for whatever reason, did not rise to the occasion of chastising Rayet. For what reason, Inaho could not discern. Instead, she looked over at both Rayet and Lucia, before turning back to Inaho. "The three of us were going to go to lunch. Yuki said there's a nice little restaurant three blocks down. We thought we'd all walk down there together." Inko paused there. It was an obvious sign that he was meant to say something, but his thoughts were occupied with his sister. She was likely driving down the road, exceptionally pleased with herself, for some unseen reason. He knew enough to know she would be happy at this turn of events, but was unsure as to why. When he failed to answer Inko, she blushed, and looked away. "It'd be nice if you cou-"

"We're all going to lunch." Rayet interrupted. His eyes shifted to her, and away from Inko. "Take your crutch. Yuki says you've been leaving it here, and I am not waiting for you to hobble down three blocks." With one solid movement, Rayet rose from their very comfortable couch, and looked at him impassively. Beside her, Lucia also rose, but it was a far more graceful movement. It was interesting how two people could do exactly the same thing, with entirely different implications by their actions.

"Are you under a time constraint?" His question was angled towards Rayet, and she gave him a rather non-feminine look.

She looked over at Inko again before answering. "No, but I don't have much patience either. Let's get going." With that simple command, Rayet headed towards the door. Inko watched her move for a few second, before smiling over at Inaho, and following Rayet.

For half a second, it was only he and 'Lucia' looking at one another. She smiled, and then followed the other two girls towards the door. Inaho ambled over to the television, the movie that had been on long forgotten. He watched it for a few seconds, before switching the device off, and ambling behind the three girls. He made sure to grab the crutch, as he had been instructed to do so. He wondered exactly how long this was going to take, and why exactly his sister had chosen to set him up in this particular manner.


	24. Chapter 24

The restaurant was a place that Yuki frequented more than he did. This was not for any particular reason relating to the quality of the food. More specifically, it was because other than breakfast, Inaho and his sister often did not eat together anymore. Sometimes, he came back early, and cooked, but often, he'd get back later, and she had already eaten. She often sent him messages asking when he would be back, but they had a general understanding that there was no need to wait for one another for meals. When he wasn't around to cook for her, and she didn't have the regular stalk of unhealthy snacks that he always attempted to limit, she came to this restaurant. That did not mean that he was not a regular patron to this particular establishment, but that Yuki-nee was simply a more regular one.

When the four of them entered, the proprietor greeted them, asked about his sister, and then promptly led them to a table with booth style seats. He noticed that Inko seemed to struggle where to sit, before Rayet shoved her at one of the booths, and then sat beside her. That left him and 'Lucia' together on the same booth. He contemplated if she should take the window seat or he should -there were pros and cons to each scenario- but before he had made a decision, she gracefully sat down, taking the seat by window and across from Inko. He took the seat next to her and watched quietly as the three girls browsed over the menu.

His mind was elsewhere when Lucia looked over at him with a smile on her face. He wasn't distracted enough not to notice, so he looked over at her in response. "What tastes good here?" He saw something else on her lips, she was going to say more, but a momentary glance over at Inko and Rayet stopped her. He found this horribly inconvenient.

"The Omurice here is affordable." He pointed at the item in question. "For the portion size, it is cost effective." Not as cheap as making it himself, but that was not the issue. They were here to socialize, not for him to cook. He almost regretted the thought. At least with cooking, he had a reasonable time table to expect. Socializing could take an exceptionally long, or short time to accomplish. He made a point of not checking his phone for the time.

Inko giggled. "Inaho loves eggs."

He opened his mouth to explain that personal preference had little to do with his preference for eggs, but when he did, he saw Rayet roll her eyes, and thought better of it. The action seemed to surprise both of the girls on the other end of the table. As they both blinked over at him, Lucia diverted the situation with another harmless question. "Should I try some juice? These drinks look very fancy." She was doubtlessly looking at the beautiful images of fruit juices and iced drinks that were on the menu.

"Water is best." Rayet stated, taking the words right out of his mouth. He looked over at her, wondering why she had answered a question aimed at him, and somehow pleased that she had said the same thing he would.

Rayet looked at him impassively. "You were going to say the same thing anyway."

He cocked his head at her. "Does that mean it was a predictive statement of what I would have said, or a statement of preference?"

Rayet did not look pleased or unpleased. "Guess."

Inko interrupted them. "Iced coffee looks good." Inko said, taking a look over at Rayet. Inaho noticed that Lucia was still looking at the menu, then focused his attention back on Rayet and Inko. He didn't understand them at all. "You should just try whatever looks good, Lucia!" Inko stated cheerfully.

The four of them fell into silence. He could tell that Rayet had already picked out what she would order, but Inko and Lucia had yet to make their decision. They were still perusing the menus. For a while, it was just he and Rayet, looking over at one another impassively. He realized that he did not like how she was looking at him, and didn't know why. Silence was usually something he could handle reasonably well, but with her eyes on him, he found himself needing to say something. "You went to the museum the other day."

Rayet raised one brow at him. "Yeah." She was supposed to continue talking after that. She didn't.

"I've heard it is a nice museum." He responded, after giving plenty of time for Rayet to keep talking.

"Yeah." Now he was positive she was doing it on purpose. Was she unhappy with him? He looked over at Inko for some sort of clue, but she had her face completely obscured by the menu. In fact, it looked like she was intentionally hiding her face with it. He blinked back over to Rayet.

"How was the museum?" It was Lucia that stated the question. He looked over at her and noticed that she had placed the menu down. Now, it was only Inko who was still making her decision.

Rayet's eyes lingered on him, before her gaze shifted to Lucia. "It was nice."

Lucia's green eyes seemed to brighten. "What sort of things do they have there?"

"Pottery, statues, old paintings." Rayet answered plainly.

He saw Inko put down the menu, and smile over at Rayet, before directing her attention back to Lucia. "They had a display of calligraphy too! I liked that exhibit best." She giggled. "But Rayet didn't. She can't read much kanji, so I had to explain a lot of it to her. It wasn't easy."

Rayet shrugged. "What's the point of writing if no one understands it. Even you and Yuki had trouble reading a lot of them."

Inko scowled. "It's art!"

Rayet shrugged again, before turning her attention back to Inaho. "What was so important that you couldn't come yesterday? You said you'd go with us."

"Work. It's-"

"Classified." Rayet did not look pleased. "Yeah, we heard. So what's really going on?"

He was saved the trouble of stating the same thing twice, when the waitress came over, and took their orders. He noted with pleasure that Lucia picked the Omurice, but also noted that she picked one of the many blended fruit juices instead of water.

Once the waitress had taken their orders, Rayet's eyes were back on him, and she didn't give him time to respond. "You're planning on going back. Is the UFE going to send you again?"

He was almost relieved that her assessment was wrong. He shook his head. "My work is classified. The UFE has not made any such request." In fact, they never had. It had not been the UFE that had sent him to Vers before. It had been him pushing to go, on request of the Empress. He had been lucky that the UFE had approved, and footed the bill for it. He doubted they would do it a second time.

Rayet's eyes narrowed, and Inaho noted that both Lucia and Inko looked very uncomfortable. Lucia was trying to hide her discomfort, but it was plain as day on Inko's face. Inaho looked back to Rayet. Rayet continued to look at him suspiciously. "I told you not to go the first time. You aren't going to make relations better by going again."

"Rayet!" Inko whispered the reprimand, and elbowed the other girl. Inko then turned her eyes to Lucia, and made an obvious change of subject. "Lucia, how did you meet Inaho? He isn't exactly good at making friends." Inko smiled good naturedly, but he could tell she was trying to dispel the situation by force.

Lucia looked over at him questioningly, and he blinked his gaze over at Inko. "I helped her evacuate Shinawara at the beginning of the war." That left enough openings for personal interpretation. It was also factual.

Inko looked confused for a moment, switching between looking at Inaho, then back at Lucia. "Have we met before then?"

Lucia gave him a soft smile of thanks, before looking over at Inko. "I'm sorry, I do not remember. I sustained serious injuries during the war. My memory is not very reliable." The statement didn't sound like a lie, but Inaho wondered if she really had suffered memory issues relating to the war. He'd never asked her, and hadn't ever contemplated the thought. Once she'd said it, it seemed entirely rational. He'd have to inquire at some point. He would be more than happy to fill in any holes she might have. "I was lucky that I was able to remember Inaho when I did. I heard of his injuries, and decided I would come to see how he was doing."

He certainly hoped she had come for some other reason than that, but even if it wasn't the whole truth, it was still a very nice thing for her to say. He knew she was a politician now, but he didn't think she could lie so well. It was likely there was some truth to the statement. He wished the situation was different, so he could give her the time she deserved, but his mind wandered to other duties.

"Vers medical technology is on par with Terran equivalents. I had the best initial care that Vers could provide." Was the response he ended up giving, both to her concern, and that of the two other girls at their table.

"And you were smart enough not to make any public appearances after." Rayet huffed. All eyes were back on her, and she shrugged. "Assassinations on Vers are not that uncommon. What you should really be looking at, is that the person tried to shoot you when you were in front of an audience, instead of trying to off you somewhere more private." It was a factor he had considered. Certainly there were better ways.

"I'm sure that the person responsible will be caught." Lucia stated, her eyes on Rayet. The emotions on her face were something Inaho couldn't read.

Rayet scoffed, and her eyes were on Lucia, but they seemed unkind. "I'm sure they'll find the trigger man, some starving person from the lower classes, probably. They won't find who gave him the gun, and they won't find who's been feeding his family for the past year to pay for it." She shook her head. "They won't find that person. They'll find the person who pulled the trigger. Then they'll have a cute little trial, because that's what's fashionable right now, and so they can paint him in an unfair light for the whole world to see. It'll look good, Vers being hard on crime. They'll give him the death penalty, and have a public hanging, or maybe they'll even try and do it more humanely. Regardless, it'll be neat and tidy, then they'll all walk away from it without a care in the world." She shook her head, and Inaho could tell the emotion in her eyes was bitterness, deep, unhealthy bitterness. She looked up at Lucia, and Inaho almost wanted to stand between them. "Vers won't solve its problems. It'll try to make it look like they have, but that's not solved."

Inko hadn't dared stop Rayet while he was in the middle of what she was saying, but the minute she'd finished, Inko took the opportunity. "Sorry Lucia, Rayet loves her politics. She doesn't mean to be so rude." Inko leveled a concerned look over at Rayet, who was looking away from the table, obviously distressed. But quickly, Inko's gaze was back over on their end of the table. "She's just worried. But it's not like you'll be going back, right Inaho?"

The hopeful, pleading look in Inko's eyes contrasted with the bright smile on her face. It was enough to give him genuine pause. He spared a glance over at Lucia, whose posture was prim and proper, but her green eyes were clouded, as they stared over at Rayet.

"I haven't made any such plans." It was a true statement, he hadn't. It didn't mean that he wouldn't, if the right people requested it. He knew he wouldn't be able to ease Inko's worries with anything more concrete.


	25. Chapter 25

Yuki was disturbed how easy it was for her to get her handgun approved to go into the hospital. All she had to do was leave her name with the receptionist, and mention that she was headed to the top floor. That was it. She could have been a psychopathic murderer with a bomb inside the cake box, and as long as she knew where she was going, they wouldn't have cared. There were literally no more questions. She didn't even get one of those silly sticker name badges. It shouldn't worry her, but it did. She didn't know how many of the hospital staff knew that Slaine Troyard was on the top floor, but she was pretty sure that at least half of the staff had been adversely affected by the war, if not more. All it would take was one little comment to the wrong person, and Count Slaine Saazbaum Troyard really would be dead. Not that he hadn't been trying on his own, but Yuki dismissed that thought.

One of the nurses escorted her to the elevator, and Yuki watched as the nurse scanned her card key, pressed the button for the top floor, and then left her alone in the elevator. She was probably being suspicious, but she couldn't help eyeing every member of the hospital staff she'd come in contact with so far. If one of them was going to ruin everything, which one would it be? Which ones that she'd come across knew who the only patient on the top floor was? She sure as hell hoped his name didn't come up in the computer. The last thing they needed was an electronic trail that someone might be able to get to. She didn't know exactly how that sort of thing worked, but if it was anything like movies -she admitted it probably wasn't- it could be a bit problem.

As the elevator's doors slid shut, Yuki breathed a sigh of relief. She hated secrets. She could handle them well enough, but she found herself wary of the situation Nao had put himself in, and it concerned her how engrossed in it he had become.

She shifted on her feet, and looked down at the cake box in her arms, and the card board drink holder held by three of her fingers. Nao wouldn't be happy that she'd dallied a little, but there were some things he just didn't get. The value in being likable was one of those things. She shifted again, and rolled her shoulder, trying to get the bag hanging off of it to a better position. The last thing she wanted was for it to fall off her shoulder, cause then she might drop the cake, and the drinks would go with it, and it would just be a huge mess for some poor soul to clean up. The opposite of what she intended.

She huffed again, and angled her gaze up to the bright red numbers of the elevator, as it went straight to the top. She wondered if it was programmed not to stop on any other floors when the button for the top floor had been hit. Maybe the nurse had waited there as she got on, to bar any other passengers from getting on. That gave her some sense of peace, but not much.

When the elevator door dinged, and opened Yuki readjusted her baggage, and padded out of the waiting doors. The top floor of the hospital was eerily quiet. So much so that it almost felt sound proof. She almost expected to see padded rooms when she walked by a few doors, but under inspection, they looked as unassuming as can be. If the lighting was a little worse, it would definitely be an ideal setting for one of those horror movies set in hospitals. The quiet was disturbing, to say the least, and it encouraged her to click her heals just a bit louder. The sound of her shuffling, and of her shoes echoed around her, and she groaned, just to hear the sound come back at her. This place sucked, and she's only been there for about 7 seconds. What the hell was Nao thinking? She sighed, shook her head, and kept moving.

She heard the closing of a door not too far away. The sound wouldn't have been noticeable if there had been any real signs of life in this place, but there weren't, so it was a dead giveaway for the direction she was suppose to go. She'd be silly not to follow it, so she did. As she turned a corner, she almost bumped right into a nurse, and it's struck her just how strange, that was. That the two of them had the whole hallway, yet somehow had managed to almost collide on a floor that probably only has four people, two of which were probably holed up in the same room. One of those old 'nothing left to chance' sayings popped into her head, and she shook it off. The odds weren't THAT bad, but it was pretty weird.

She took a few steps back, and offered the obviously surprised nurse a warm smile. "Hi, I'm Kaizuka Yuki. Kaizuka Inaho's older sister." She'd offer her hand to shake, or raise it up for a salute -since this is a military hospital- but her hand are sort of busy, so she does a little bow instead. The nurse didn't look Japanese, but that didn't really matter. "Are you taking care of..." Yuki intentionally trailed off. Obviously, the nurse had clearance to be on that floor, but it seemed like a bad idea to just go blurting out that Slaine Troyard was a patient there.

Understanding rather quickly, the nurse offers a small bow back, and nods her head. "Yes! Yes I am. Well, not just me, but I'm one of the nurses working on the patient here." Yuki noted that she looked young. That wasn't a strange thing for nurses, and now that Yuki looked at her a second time, she actually didn't seem that young. It was strange, her first opinion had definitely been that the nurse was younger than her, but on a second look, she was positive the nurse had to be older. It was a strange thing, but Yuki shook her head and dismissed it.

"Just who I wanted to see then, Miss..." Yuki leaned forward, trying to get a good look at the key card around the nurse's neck to get a name, but the nurse beat her to it.

"Adele Dorian. Please just call me Adele." For just a flash, the nurse's smile didn't look right. Like it was the right face on the wrong person, but then it was gone again, and Yuki really had no idea what to think about that.

She chose to play it off as nothing. "Right, nice to meet you Adele. Both my brother and I would like to thank you for putting up with us. And him, but, well, that's sort of obvious." Yuki laughed good naturedly, and Adele sort of chuckled with her, but Yuki could tell the nurse didn't think it was funny. "I would be really thankful, if you could.." Yuki chose to ignore the exchange, and head straight to what she was actually suppose to be doing. Or at least what she had planned to do, without Nao knowing about it. She shifted on her feet, and extended her arms, and the cake box with it. "share this with the staff working on him."

Adele looked surprised for a few moments, before rushing forward was taking the offered item. As if she's a much younger person, the nurse peered into the plastic see through cover of the cake. Yuki shook her head.

"I'm sure it's a lot of trouble for all of you." Now with one hand free, Yuki reached up to readjust the bag on her shoulder, before looking back over at Adele. "We just want to make sure that everyone knows that we really appreciate it!" She thought about making another playful joke about Troyad, but decided better of it. The nurse likely wouldn't find it amusing. "He doesn't cooperate as much as he should, so I'm sure your job hasn't been easy so far."

Adele had her eyes angled down at the cake, but quickly turned them back up towards Yuki, and shook her head almost sheepishly. "It's no trouble. He isn't the worst patient I've had." And Yuki can definitely believe that. The woman is old enough to have been working through the war, be that good or bad for their current predicament. Perhaps most interesting about the statement, is that Yuki has absolutely no doubt that it is genuine. This nurse doesn't think that treating Count Slaine Saazbaum Troyard, is any trouble at all. Yuki isn't sure what to think of that.

"Well, it's still important that you all know that we value the hard work you've put into this." Yuki shifts on her feet, and smiles over at the nurse. "I put my cell phone number on the napkin." She'd put a cute smiley face with it, but she's going to let Adele find that out on her own. "Feel free to send me a message, or call if you need anything, or if you need help convincing my younger brother of something." She winked at the nurse, and Adele looked down at the cake again, obviously looking for the thing in question. "Of course, it would be best if you could be discrete about anything you say, or send on that line. It isn't secure or anything, so no dropping any important proper nouns! Just know that I'm here to help if you need anything!"

Adele nodded, blinked a few times, and then looked up at Yuki with a bright smile on her face. The same smile that didn't fit for half a second, then did. "Thank you, I'll be sure to share with the rest of the staff!" She looked down at the cake again, then cocked her head to the side, just a bit. Yuki placed the movement as sheepish. "Actually, it would be good if he got a walk around the premise. There aren't any other patients on this floor, so the two of you could walk around freely. As long as you keep a close eye on him, I'm sure you could even take him up to the roof." The smile on Adele's face got softer, and there was definitely some form of affection there. "You'd have to tell me of course, and I'd have to make sure no one has access up to the roof while you're there, but I think it would do him some good to get some sunshine. It is a beautiful day out today."

Yuki smiled. "That might be a good idea. If we do, I'll make sure to press the call button. Thanks for the suggestion!" She could feel the bag on her shoulder slipping again, so Yuki reached over, and readjusted it once again. She caught the nurse glancing over at the bag, looking back at Yuki, then looking back at the bag again.

"Oh! Are those books for him?" As if very curious, Adele leaned over so that she could get a look at the bags contents, before bouncing back on the balls of her feet.

Yuki smiled, and shrugged one shoulder. "Guess you caught me. He's stuck up there all day with nothing to do, so I figured I'd bring him something to read. It'll probably help with the boredom."

Adele nodded, looked away for a few seconds, as if she was trying to decide if she was going to say something or not, then looked back at Yuki. "What sort of books did you bring?"

Yuki leaned in and whispered "Raunchy harlequin novels." She couldn't help but giggle at the blush that overcame the nurses' face. "I don't know if he actually likes them, but of all the books I brought him before, he picked up one of the harlequin ones first." She shrugged again lightheartedly.

The nurse was still blushing, and she cleared her throat in almost a nervous way, shifting so that she held the cake in one hand and covered her mouth in the other. Then Adele looked over at her inquisitively. "He received some flowers today. We don't know who from, but he seems to really love them. Maybe he'd like some books about nature?"

Yuki let that statement sink in for a second longer than she should have. If the nurse noticed, it didn't show. "Oh, really? I'll see what I can find."

"I live by an old book store." Adele supplied. "I go there a lot, so I've got a lot of books just sitting around at my house. If it's alright, I could bring some for him."

Yuki didn't narrow her eyes. She smiled and scratched the back of her head. "Sorry, I don't think that'd go over well. There aren't a lot of things he's allowed to see. If I showed you the list, you'd be amazed! A lot of the things on there are pretty silly, but, you know how regulations are. Have to keep to them, even if they seem pretty silly." Yuki laughed good naturedly, and noted how the nurse looked a little surprised, before nodding in response.

"Anyway, thanks again for all your help. I'd better go check on him. That is why I'm here. I'll be sure to press the call button if we decide to take a walk up on the roof." She waited just long enough for the nurse to nod in farewell, before Yuki quickly made her way to Troyard's room.

She wasn't sure if she should have the nurse removed from Troyard's care, fired from the hospital, or try and convince Inaho to hire her on at the prison.


	26. Chapter 26

Yuki made sure to knock on the room door both firmly and gently at the same time. Firmly, because she didn't like Troyard and he should know it. Gently, because the guard today was Akiko, and she had a habit of getting the guards to like her. Even if their job sucked -which it did- she wanted the guards to at least have an amiable relationship her. It wouldn't stop them from doing anything, but they might be less harsh, and they would definitely feel comfortable talking to her earnestly. Those were all important things that her brother was absolutely going to miss out on. Besides, she'd had a hand in interviewing most of the new guard. With Nao's supervision and support of course, but still. There was no denying that he wouldn't mind the lack of social interaction with the staff, but they wouldn't consider him approachable either. Even if this whole thing was a horrible idea, she had every intention of being as useful in this -project? endeavor? wild goose chase?- situation as she could be. And that meant picking up Nao's socially inept slack.

She didn't expect to be admitted personally, so when she faintly heard something that might have been a grunt of some sort, Yuki let herself in. The guard, who definitely was Akiko, took a good look at her before grinning. She liked Akiko, but she'd liked most of the guards she picked, and had learned to like the others. She'd done everything she could to make sure they weren't cruel. The situation lent itself to abuse, and she was not going to tolerate that. Troyard was officially dead, and not a damn soul had cared about that. There was no one except Nao who was going to care if the guards were doing things they shouldn't, and though her brother was observant, she had more faith in Troyard's ability to be uncooperative, even in situations that were to his benefit.

The place was isolated and well equip for any horror movie with its eerie silence and to white walls. The guard duty entailed standing around for hours doing nothing except watching a teenage murderer try and off himself by wasting away. Now, Troyard was even being refused basic food items in favor of pills that were meant to save his miserable, sad life. It was enough to make her want to lock Nao in a room for a few days, with a steady stream of cartoon nonsense as his nanny, with lots and lots of noggies and tickling. She alternatively had no idea how she wanted to handle Troyard. It was complicated.

She offered Akiko a subtle smile, and motioned with her head outside of the room. Akiko gave her an appreciative nod, before heading out. As she did, Yuki quietly handed her a matcha milk tea from her little cardboard drink container, and gave the other woman a wink. The broad smile on the other woman's face before she disappeared, was a good sign.

Yuki waited till she heard the click of the door behind her, before she let her eyes stray to the far bed by the window. Troyard was there, sprawled on the bed, and noticeably taking up as little space as possible. He looked horrible; even Nao would have seen it. She grimaced, and let her eyes fall on the brilliant blue bouquet of roses on the bed side table. Troyard's cloudy eyes were focused on it, and she could see, even from here, that something was there, lurking in his eyes, that hadn't existed before. She didn't know enough about him to say what that was, and if he turned his head to look at her properly -not a chance- it would be long gone.

The flowers were easy to look at. They were gorgeous, a beautiful set of blue roses, with a vibrant, deep color she'd never seen on roses before. Now that she thought of it, she really hadn't ever seen blue roses before. Were they rare? It was sort of a puzzling question, but the flowers were easy to look at. They led her to who had brought them, why such a strange color of roses, why the vase was glass when it needed to be plastic. It did not lead her to Troyard.

She found it difficult to look at him, because when she did, she didn't see the lowlife piece of shit that had tried to murder her brother. She saw a teenager who had been denied a future. She saw a stupid boy around Nao's age, around the same age as any of the kids she'd taught. He should be reading dumb manga, or hiding porn under his bed, or learning life lessons that all idiot teenagers learned by making mistakes and taking responsibilities for them.

Slaine Saazbaum Troyard, she reminded herself. The same 16 year old that had left her only family to die with a bullet in his head. The same 18 year old that had championed violent domination of Earth. It was harder to remember when she looked at him.

The sound of her heals clicking on the white hospital tiles showed none of her hesitation. She grabbed the chair, and sat down. "I brought books." She stated curtly, placing the drinks on the floor, and reaching for the bag on her shoulder. She extracted three slim novels from the bag, and placed them within his reach on the bedside table. She made sure not to displace the flowers. She really should get a plastic vase for them, glass was way too much of a hazard. The fact that Nao had missed that, just confirmed that he was too invested, and far too emotionally drained. Nao worked well under stress, he didn't know what to do when he had to sit and wait. His mind moved to fast for such inactivity.

Troyard didn't say anything, he simply kept looking at the flowers, but for a moment, his lip moved. She knew that it was a sign he had wanted to say something, and thought better of it. It was a guess, but she was positive of it. Troyard was a hard read, he could lead her in surprising circles, but she felt like she was slowly catching on.

"I have something else for you." She reached into the bag, and almost didn't pull them back out. She scowled, and hefted the little thing out. "It's a boom box. It's been sitting around for ages." She took a good look at the black thing. She remembered buying it ages ago, when they'd just moved into the apartment, and she'd realized how quiet living with only two people was. It had a happy little home in their kitchen for years, where the sound could vibrate off the walls, and permeate the whole house. She should have thrown it away years ago. She blew off the dust, and wiped away at the item. "The radio doesn't work anymore, but it still reads CDs, and it's got a place for headphones."

She stood from the chair, making sure her bag was still on her shoulder, and moved over to the other side of the bed. That side already had the flowers, and the books. She'd have to fit the noise maker over on the other end, amidst the contraptions and devises they were using to monitor him. When she'd gently shoved things over, she set it down. "One of the speakers doesn't work, so you'll probably wanna use headphones anyway."

Yuki reached back into the bag, and produced a pretty blue green set of headphones, which had grabbed her at a store, and really implanted the whole idea in her brain. She placed them on the bed next to him, and then brought out a wrapped CD. At movement so close to him, she saw him tense up, and though his head had not moved from where it was placed, his eyes were squarely on her. She ignored it, and walked back to her chair. "The CD is Bach Cello Suites." She didn't say 'cause you aren't getting another cello, you sad little boy' but she thought it was pretty well implied. "If you want anything else, you can ask, but I won't make any promises."

She thought about all the music she knew, of all the songs she'd grown up with, and that were new favorites. Though she'd extended the offer, it was unlikely that Troyard was going to take her up on it. Even if he wanted to, would he know what to ask for? She had no idea. She shook her head. One step at a time, she reminded herself, and stood up again.

She wandered back over to the boom box. As with just about anything, it was easier to focus on than Troyard. "Pretty flowers." She stated as she reached over, and fumbled with the plastic wrapper of the CD. "Blues a strange color for roses though." When she thought of roses, she thought of deep red, powdery pink, or striking white.

"They're unnatural." The statement was soft, but she'd heard it clear as day.

She nodded her head, as if he was looking at her, and as if they were just having a regular conversation while she fiddled with the infernal plastic wrap. "I didn't know that. How do they make them? Is it some special breeding thing?"

She finally got the damned plastic wrap off, and shoved the crinkly material into her bag. "People tried to make blue roses genetically, but the result wasn't really what they wanted." He stopped talking, and she clicked open the CD case, before putting the CD into the boom box.

"Sound like a lot of trouble." She clicked the volume down, so that the sound wasn't too loud. All she needed was for it to take that eerie silence out of the place. The sound quality wasn't amazing, but the sound of a cello wafted from the one working speaker, and she was sure it had done plenty.

Troyard stopped breathing for just a second, as the music started, and a beat later, he kept talking. "Roses like these, are white and treated to be blue. It's the only way to get the rich color."

She frowned, and moved back to her seat. "That seems sorta sad." She sat down, and when enough time had passed, that it was obvious Troyard wasn't going to continue, she spoke up again. "White roses are beautiful on their own. They don't need to be blue for that. Why would anyone want something that doesn't exist, if something just as beautiful was staring them in the face?"

Troyard didn't look at her, but she could see deep creases on his face, as he looked at the blue roses in front of him.

When he finally did answer her, after a long silence, amidst the fluttering of cello strings, it was small, and hesitant. "I don't know."

She didn't dare look at him.


	27. Chapter 27

Inaho watched with forced apathy as Rayet and Inko clambered out of the booth, and both wandered over towards the bathroom. Inko was almost dragging Rayet with her, who had been the one to get up to begin with. He might never understand the delicacy of females simultaneously going to the restroom, but he was more than happy to use the opportunity.

Once the two of them had disappeared, his eyes rapidly shifted to the girl beside him. Her green eyes had turned introspective, and were staring at her hands, held tightly in her lap. He could guess that she was suffering from a range of emotions, likely all in relation to Rayet's hate for the home they shared. He also wondered if she was contemplating the legitimacy of Rayet's statements. He had never known her to be against listening to reason, it was simply often that she chose not to take such advice.

He could hear Yuki chiding him, that he needed to take social interactions on a more personable level, but there was nothing he could do for her situation. Not really. He couldn't give her petty reassurances. Rayet had her right to say what she liked. Unless of course there was something he could do for her situation, in which case, she would tell him. He enjoyed it when she relied on him in such a manner. Amid the internal musings, which sounded sinisterly like his sister on one of her matchmaking escapades, he also remembered that Seylum had never begrudged him his lack of tact. He also had a time table, which he wasn't going to keep to, but that he would have like to at least attempt.

"Someone sent flowers to the hospital today." He made the statement quieter than he would have normally. He hadn't said anything particularly damning, but he didn't want to attract attention either. The place was relatively deserted, but he imagined that the proprietor would look at him whispering to a young girl, and stay away. He had his suspicions that Yuki-nee was more than happy to discuss his lack of personal life with just about anyone that showed an interest. That might have been an exaggeration on his part, but he felt it wasn't entirely uncharacteristic. "Have you any knowledge of this?"

She looked up at him, her eyes wide, but still clouded. "No" Her simple answer was also whispered. He couldn't tell if she understood his plan, but she did understand the need for subtlety. He scooted closer to make the exchange more convincing. She noticed the motion with a flick of her eyes, and then those green eyes were back, locked with his. He remembered their depth at only that moment. He hadn't realized he'd missed it. There had been so much happening when he'd left Mars, and then Slaine had spiraled out of any reasonable sense of control. He had been busy. He only now realized that his sister's comments were accurate. Being busy, was not an acceptable excuse to just forget such things. "What kind of flowers?"

The look on her face was impassive, yet warm. Her fingers twitched ever so slightly in her lap, and he wondered why. He would have liked to reach over and take her hand, but that was to forward. He shifted his gaze back, and focused on her face again. "Blue roses." He edged a little closer, and something happened in his chest, when she reciprocated the action. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the proprietor looking at them sheepishly, but he kept his distance. There was little chance of him overhearing their conversation. He would thank his sister for her wandering tongue later. The proprietor obviously knew that he needed privacy for such an 'intimate' moment.

She raised her head up, so that they were just that much closer. He could smell her quite clearly. It was another thing he hadn't realized he'd missed. It had been a long time since he'd been close enough to smell her particular scent, and the memory also brought back the smell of blood and smoke.

Her demeanor was what he would call, alluring, and he couldn't tell if it was also a ruse like his, or not. There was warmth and kindness, but her eyes swam. He wondered if that was what people meant when they said that one could see the soul through the eyes. "I will look into it." Her eyes flickered to the bathroom door. "I have other matters to discuss, but we will need a better time."

He could also hear the pounding of Rayet's feet, and the hesitant stutters of Inko's uneven foot falls. Rayet was likely dragging her along. He heard these things, but he couldn't seem to take his eyes off of the girl that was now pressed to his side. The disguise was all wrong, but there was enough of the woman beneath it, that it really didn't matter. It had never been aesthetic beauty that had attracted him before.

Inaho thought, for just a second, that he could kiss her. He could peck this 'Lucia' on the cheek or the lips, and that it would be fine. Rayet and Inko would see it, Seylum would know it, Vers never would, and he would get something he hadn't realized he wanted. That second ended very quickly, and Lucia shyly pulled away. He mirrored her motion.

They were once again, a healthy, platonic distance away. There was a faint blush on Lucia's cheek, and he wondered if he showed any signs of being flustered. He felt flustered. That had perhaps been a poor idea, but he couldn't find it in himself to regret it. He was rarely so indulgent.

When he turned to look at the two girls as they ambled back into the booth, there seemed to be a new understanding between them. Inko chatted just as if she hadn't just witnessed them so close. Rayet looked on impassively, occasionally making some rude or obtuse statement.

None of it was within his calculations. When had he stopped understanding his friends? For that matter, when had he lost sight of what exactly he wanted? He thought of a white hospital room, of a table with two chairs, a chess board, and a chamber of glass surrounding it. Oh, he thought. Perhaps.


	28. Chapter 28

Calm had just sat down, and laid his head back, when he felt the familiar buzz of his phone. He groaned, closed his eyes, and groped blindly for his pocket. "I told them what to do." He mumbled and slipped his hand into his pocket. After a few second of groping around in the pocket -and disregarding the other things he had in there- he produced the sleek black devise. "They don't need me there. Why do they keep calli-" He opened his eyes, and stopped.

Nina, seated beside him, shrugged, but said nothing. She didn't take her eyes off of her own phone held in front of her, but did pucker her lips and wink in its general direction.

The two fell into silence as Calm looked at his phone, and then shook his head.

"I don't think he's adjusting." Calm finally stated, not taking his eyes off of his phone. Beside him, Nina's phone flashed. She then quickly pulled the phone closer to her face for inspection. She smiled at the image she'd taken, looked at it in thought for a few seconds, then looked over at Calm.

"What?"

"Inaho." Calm stated. He looked over at her, and she looked back at him innocently. He tried not to scowl. "I think Inaho's struggling."

Nina nodded her head. "Of course he is." She stated plainly. He continued to frown in her general direction and she shifted her eyes to something else within the airport. A food stand, he noted. "That's why Inko's there. She likes Inaho best, so she'd know."

He looked at her for a few more seconds, before he shifted his gaze away too. It was a bustling day at the air port. He checked the time on his phone, and tried to ignore the message. Two hours till their connecting flight. "There are some things a woman can't help with. Especially one that only gets to visit."

Nina looked back at him for that, and smiled sweetly. "Like porn?"

Calm looked over at her incredulously. Cute girls were the scariest, he thought, as he tried to fight the blush on his face. "Porn isn't the only thing! Guys have other things to worry about too!"

She giggled at him. She brought her hand up to cover her mouth as she did it, but she definitely giggled at him. It was infuriating. He shoved his phone back into his pocket, and folded his arms in front of him. Calm was determined not to look at her again, reminding himself just why he didn't interact with Nina too much.

Nina stopped laughing at some point, and the two fell into silence again. But he didn't like silence, so instead of watching the chattering people around him, he looked at his phone again. The last message he'd received still blinked in front of him.

"What other things?" The question was undeniably innocent, but he had a hard time accepting that. Nina just looked cute, she always made jokes. He looked up at her, his eyes crinkled at the corner, and his eyebrows uneven.

"What?"

Her smile was less cheeky. He couldn't tell if that was a good sign or a bad one. "What other things is Inaho worried about?"

Calm looked at her, then back at his phone. He knew he shouldn't. It wasn't any of her business. He shouldn't have said anything, but it was Nina, what harm could it do? Besides, maybe Inaho really should be asking a girl about this sort of thing. Even if it was nice that Inaho had sent him a message out of nowhere, he didn't have any idea what to tell him. He thought about it for a few seconds, before he sighed, and read the message.

"'In a hypothetical situation where someone isn't able to make friends, has limitless time, and has reasonable fund to do what he pleases, how should someone spend his time?'" He looked up from his phone with his mouth held in a firm line. "That's what he sent me. He's never been good at making friends but if it's that bad, of course I'm going to worry. And if I mention a girlfriend, he'll probably just think about the Princess-"

"Empress" Nina interrupted him.

"Empress." He thought about giving Nina a dirty look for interrupting him, but he decided to frown down at his phone instead. "Yuki said he really liked her. That she'd never seen him so happy before. I didn't see it, but with messages like that, maybe she's right." He leaned forward in his seat, placing his elbows on his knees, and the phone dangling in one of his hands. "Maybe he really has got it bad for her."

Nina shrugged. "Inko says he does, but she gets a faraway look when she says it. Since she like Inaho best, that sort of thing is painful."

Calm gave her a sideways look, before looking back down at the floor for a few seconds. He let his neck go limp, and his head hang for a little while, then pushed himself back up into a proper sitting position. He stretched out his arms before sitting normally. "It's not like I'm any good at advice."

"Cause you're a virgin!" Nina chimed in cheerfully. He about gagged, but she didn't give him the chance to respond. "But, I think you're being very unCalm, and thinking too much." She pointed at her own head, put a cute expression on her face, and tilted her head for extra effect. "This is Inaho, think about what he is asking, not what he isn't. He's a straightforward guy."

Ignoring the heat in his cheeks, Calm looked at his phone. "Is that any easier? What would someone without friends, without work, and with money do? I mean, I think we all imagine things like that, but no one lives that way."

"I'd get a pet." Nina answered, tapping her chin in thought. Then, a glimmer came to her eyes, and in one fell swoop, she grabbed Calm's phone from him. "I've got the right answer!" She chimed, and started typing away.

He wasn't about to fight a girl to get his phone back, even if there were a few things on there he didn't want her to see, so he leaned over, and peered at what she was doing. Thankfully, she was just harmlessly typing out a response.

"Is that something girls like?" He asked almost inquisitively. He thought that was more of a boy thing, or young boys, or boys that didn't really grow up, but he could be wrong.

For once, Nina looked up at him, and was noticeably disgruntled. She stuck out her tongue. "It's totally a thing that BOTH girls and boys enjoy! And it's complicated! Inaho would love it, and so will the hypothetical person he's talking about."

Calm rolled his eyes. "You just mean Inaho then."

In a flash, her smile was back, and this time, it was playful. "Are you sure?"


	29. Chapter 29

Inaho couldn't say he was unhappy when their simple lunch, morphed into lunch, then shopping. As they had conversed, it had become apparent that Inko and Rayet had not yet gone shopping on the island. Inaho then plainly admitted shopping was something they really should do.

Like many other small islands in Japan, the one that had become his new residence had not been devastated during the war. Such small islands hadn't seemed to matter to the Orbital Knights, and though abandoned, often had sustained minimal to no damage. That had made it an ideal spot to house Slaine at the very onset of peace. There had been no need to construct a structure to suit their needs, the one they were using had already existed. They'd needed to make a few adjustments, but the structure had been there for quite a while.

Ironically, it was now remote places that people flocked to; staking claims to buildings and homes before the government could rush in and figure out who owned what, and who was still alive to own what. It had become quite the issue, but it did result in a few interesting phenomenon. Shopping, happened to be one of them. Most urban centers were largely decimated during the war, and money to feed people was scarce, let alone money to start rebuilding. Thus, where large cities had once been the epicenters of commerce, they now dealt in goods out of trailer trucks and makeshift shelters, and markets. None of which were very reliable. It was now the remote towns and islands that housed a great deal of selection, and best imitated the whole pre-war shopping experience. This was simply because they had the infrastructure, and stability to support what had once been a normal economic system.

That meant, quite oddly, that the small, sparsely populated island that he now lived in, had a much larger selection of goods for sale, and a better atmosphere than many large cities. It was a situation he expected to shift once the larger urban centers really started working on their infrastructures again. For now, people were flocking to claim abandoned property as their own. That wasn't to say that many things were available, but production had started up again shortly after the war, and more luxury goods were starting to filter into the system. Things were more expensive now for laymen, but for military personnel, there really wasn't a lot on the market they couldn't afford.

That all equated to the very strange instance that they found themselves in. Inko and Rayet had plenty of money to spend, and it was only here, out in the middle of nowhere, that they had a good variety of things to spend that money on.

Inaho had expected that they had already spent time in the island's shopping district. It was with some surprise on his part, that he learned they had in fact waited for him. He wasn't exactly sure how that made him feel, other than 'bad', which was a relatively vague term for something his sister would have been able to name, with accuracy, in an instant. That, made him feel even worse.

And that was how he found himself, in a clothing store, looking at his phone. He'd already selected a few sweaters to purchase, and was waiting for Inko and Lucia to try things on. Next to him, Rayet was sitting impatiently. She leaned over to steal a glance at his phone in her impatience, and he wondered if she had gotten better at reading kanji. He then quickly remembered he hadn't messaged Calm in Japanese to begin with.

She frowned, but at the message sprawled across his phone, not at him. "You're lonely?" She accused, and the statement only held disbelief. There was none of the softness that Yuki would have put in there and none of the resignation that might have been in Inko's tone. Rayet was just critical.

"No." He answered quickly. It was only a few seconds to late, that he realized his answer was too short. Did Rayet know him well enough to notice? "Hypothetical means based on or serving as a general hypothesis without conclusive data."

Rayet rolled her eyes. "Okay, so you know someone who can't make friends, has a lot of time on their hands, and has money to do what they want. And you are somehow interested in fixing that situation, so you're asking for help, in a text message, to someone you don't talk to on a regular basis anymore. That's what you want me to believe?"

His pause only seemed to bolster her argument. "Your conjecture as to my motives is inconsequential." He paused again. "Calm is a male friend of similar age to me. It is my understanding that males typically converse much less than females, and thus our limited interactions recently is neither abnormal, nor should be considered irregular behavior."

She looked at him strangely for a few seconds. "You know you do that, right? Pull out big words when you don't want to lie, but don't want to tell the truth either."

He continued to look at his phone. "If I do use sesquipedalian tactics, it is not intentional." And that was a true statement. Did he use words he didn't think Rayet would know to deflect her? It wasn't his normal tactic, was it? He looked over at her. "I'm sorry. Thank you for your concern. I am not lonely."

She blinked at him for a few seconds, then narrowed her eyes. "You're hiding things."

"I am very sincere. Please do not worry about me." He looked her right in the eye, and she looked right back at him, before she sighed in irritation.

"As if." She motioned back to his phone with her head. "You going to take that advice? I've heard of Terran pets, but not the other thing."

He looked back at his phone, glad that she had also done the same. Somehow, he didn't like her looking at him so harshly. "It's a video game which simulates catching and training fictional animals. Certainly a fictional animal would be easier to care for, but I doubt it would elicit a deep emotional response such as an actual animal would." Inaho answered.

She looked at him as if he'd grown a second head. He looked back at her because it seemed the proper thing to do, despite his discomfort. He hoped she didn't notice. "Do you want a deep emotional response?"

He paused at her question, and mulled over his own answer, and what exactly he could say to her. Omitting information was much easier for him than outright lying. "There is someone at work who is deeply troubled. I feel some form of emotional connection to another living thing could help his mental state."

"Oh." At the little noise, he looked up at her, and noticed that she was looking away. He couldn't tell what she was thinking but she looked like there was something happening in her head. He had no idea what to think of it, until she looked back at him, and was a lot more relaxed for some reason. Her eyes no longer unnerved him. Perhaps she had accepted his answer for the half truth it was. "I guess, then. Always thought Terran pets would be messy. They're cute, but I don't really understand the idea of pets anyway."

Inaho nodded. "Dogs are universally popular for their dedication, loyalty and usefulness. They need consistent exercise to stay healthy, can be assertive, affectionate members of the family, and are known to defend their masters without question."

Rayet shrugged. "Sounds useful?"

"In this situation, perhaps not." He paused, thinking of how a dog would react if the guards manhandled Slaine. It would likely have to be put down, which would be far more detrimental should Slaine become attached. "Defense is not something this coworker needs, and he himself does not get consistent exercise. I don't think his personal habits would change to suit a dog's needs."

"Alright," Rayet shrugged, and tilted her head. "so not a dog. What else?"

He paused for only a beat."There are a variety of smaller pets that would be very possible outcomes, but I think a cat is a good choice."

"They're cute." The answer was bland. He wondered if Rayet was really interested in the conversation, or if she was humoring him. He could never tell with her.

"They are small, and able to slip into various places, but are generally reliable to return to where they consider home. They are clean animals for the most part, and need little maintenance. If there is a pest problem within the living space, they could even learn to feed themselves given the proper time to do so." He hadn't noticed any such thing, but if anyone would catch it, a cat would. "They are also rather lethargic, and enjoy sleeping large parts of the day, but can be playful and affectionate in youth. I believe if those things are encouraged, allowing for variables of individual personalities, it is possible that a cat can be as affectionate as dog without the demand for consistent exercise or amusement."

She gave him a look he couldn't place. "Sound like you've already made up your mind."

"About what?" Inaho turned, and there was Lucia, walking towards them, with clothes in hand. She handed the dress she'd tried on back to the attendant with a soft thank you, then walked over to the two of them.

"Pets." Rayet answered. She motioned with her head over towards Inaho. "He's thinking of getting a pet for a co-worker, of all things." Rayet shrugged, but he wasn't looking at Rayet.

Those green eyes were on him, and the woman in front of him knew instantly what he was thinking. "A bird." She said quietly. She looked sad, but she was still smiling. Her green eyes churned. "I think birds are lovely, amazing animals."

Inaho probably sat there blinking at her for too long. So long that Rayet waved obnoxiously in front of his face, and mentioned something before he spoke again. He wasn't actually sure how he found his voice, but he did. "Birds are often chosen for their aesthetic beauty and lovely voices. They are animals that tend to require high maintenance and care, with an exponentially large range of needs depending on the species. There are few guarantees that a bird will not fly away, unless it is consistently caged, or its wings are habitually clipped by someone with the knowledge to do so and not injure the animal in the process. Without its wings, it cannot be expected to be capable of self reliance. There is a general misconception that birds are fragile, and will die quickly, but this is due to general mistreatment that they often receive. In fact, many bird species that live in optimal environments can live for many, many years. They are not an ideal pet for anyone not interested in a long term commitment. A great deal of research must be done into the type of bird, the temperament, and the dietary needs. A bird is a poor choice for those unprepared. "

It had been the wrong thing to say, and he'd known it only a few seconds after starting, but he'd kept going. Her face fell rapidly, and he wasn't exactly sure why. There were quite a few possibilities. He couldn't decide if he really wanted to know all of them or not. But once he'd started the statement, he knew he couldn't stop, and he hadn't. It was the truth, and she had never shied away from his truths, even if she didn't like them. Such harmless statements about birds worth as domestic pets, should not have elicited such a response. It was so obvious, that even Rayet picked up on it. She didn't stop him either though, just looked at Lucia with those critical eyes.

"Oh." Lucia said, and it sounded like she wanted to cry. "I guess you're right. I probably do feel that way about birds for their aesthetic, and the beauty of their voices." She looked up at him. "Of course birds would prefer to be free, than caged. I didn't realize that you had to clip their wings to make them stay. How foolish of me."

He had no words. He didn't even know how this conversation had gotten so emotional for her, over a seemingly inconsequential subject. There was a lot more going on than he was getting, and he had no idea where to even start with it.

Rayet beat him to the punch. "Ignorance isn't the same as being stupid, unless you let it make you do something stupid."

Lucia nodded, and smiled at Rayet, but it wasn't a happy smile.

Inko showed up at that moment, showing off the dress she was trying on. Everyone made their comments, and told Inko how wonderful it looked on her how she'd picked the right color, and how the price was quite reasonable. Inko then beamed, and bounded back to the dressing room, pleased and blushing at the responses. They did not resume the conversation.


	30. Chapter 30

Slaine was tired. That was the easiest way to put his current state of being. It was nice to have Kaizuka gone. It was wonderful to have Eddelrittuo close by, and the roses she'd so lovingly given him. It was draining to deal with the woman, and her forced kindness. It had been one of the most eventful days of his incarceration. Days tended to drag on, with little to no distinguishing features. They had their major lows, but generally, days bled into one another. Today had been very different, and he found it exhausting. Whatever tolerance for weariness he'd built up over the years, seemed long gone now. His ability to handle new situations seemed like a memory long gone.

He could remember when he'd forced the world to turn in his hands, had formed alliances, ruined others. Had discarded and abused those around him for his one singular purpose. Then, he had been tired. Weary as only the damned knew, where there was never time to stop or slow down. There had been no rest, no good night sleep, no escape from what he was doing, and what he was going to do. It had been necessary, and he had pushed and pushed and pushed himself to be capable of ensuring the Princesses future. It had been his project, his life's work, the only reason to keep dragging his rotting corpse out of its grave. Tired had been a way of life. It had been a battle to keep from being eaten alive, to push himself to the absolute limit of his capabilities, and then to push some more.

In the last 9 months (had it really been 9?), his life had taken an abrupt about face. He had looked death in the face so many times, that it rarely scared him. Pain and anguish and torment had been second skins. Layers of new cloth to don that signified his shift from victim to culprit, until he'd worn the crimson blood of the other mass murders that were his Vers counterparts. Now, at the prospect of living indefinitely, he was horrified. He was already officially dead, and how appropriate that was; for the dead boy who crashed into Mars, for the dead traitor Saazbaum had murdered to save, and now the dead dictator of a new era that would never exist. If he'd ever been much for laughing, he would have tried out the sound.

He could have died at any point, should have died at many, yet here he was, a dead man, alive. Maybe he should choke Kaizuka one day, for being so very kind, for 'saving' him for a third, miserable time. As if both previous times had not ended in such utter agony and betrayal. That's what happened when people saved him, they inherited him, and every mental instability that had defined him.

Now it was Kaizuka, trying to stitch the pieces back together, without any clue that they had never been a whole piece to begin with. It was Eddelrittuo, telling him that miracles and the impossible were both sides of the same coin. It was the woman, flipping through a magazine as cello music fluttered in his ear drums. He was so tired.

The only one who had ever seen, ever taken the time to notice had been Saazbaum. He must have known how warped and twisted roots can get, because Slaine was positive Saazbaum knew the first time they met. But Saazbaum had hurt her, and even if it meant destroying the only living thing that understood him, that had actually protected him when no one would, he never could have done any differently. Saazbaum knew he was signing his own death warrant when he agreed to help the Princess, he must have, but it didn't matter. He'd still done it, and he'd accepted Slaine's judgment. He'd tried hard to live up to that shadow, for both the Princess, and for Saazbaum himself. He was convinced that their goals of making Vers fundamentally better, were not so different. They simply had vastly different forms of execution. It had been his goal to bridge those two methods into one, that would in the end, make both happy.

Saazbaum knew that if push came to shove, the royal family would get in his way, but had hated them from the start, so he'd relished the thought of being rid of them. He'd judged their sins, and found them unfit. Slaine had hoped he would be wrong, that he'd be able to placate the princesses till their ideal world was ready. Push had come to shove. Saazbaum had been right, and he didn't have the will to oppose her to fulfill his late father's wishes and her own. He'd killed Saazbaum for her, how could he have made any other choice.

He was tired, but it was a different tired than when he'd worn the clothes of Count Slaine Saazbaum Troyard. That had been a 'push until you shatter' sort of tired. He had been both the marionette and the puppet master unable to stop dancing. Now, he was broken. It was a different tired. A very, different, tired.

He promised to himself, with resignation, that he wouldn't speak to Eddelrittuo again. He wouldn't saddle her with any more of his problems. She had been to kind to him already, and she shouldn't have known he would be here. She shouldn't have known he was even alive. Eddelrittuo belonged at the Empresses side, with her emotional eyes, and her compassion, Eddelrittuo was an ideal friend for the Empress. It was hard for him to imagine she had chosen time away from that, and it enraged him that the new Emperor would dare use her in such a way. She was not safe as a spy, yet Klancain had sent her, and the Empress had supported it. He didn't know what to think of that. Was she meant to spy on him? Certainly she had grown to know him a little better than most, but was this some sort of plot or ploy for information?

He didn't know, and it really didn't matter. He was a dead man, what did he have that anyone wanted? The answer was very simple. Nothing. He could find no discernible reason to keep him alive. Though, he had never seen any logical reason for someone to save his life, yet it had happened time and time again.

Still, even if none of it mattered, he wanted Eddelrittuo safe. She deserved that much for her loyalty and dedication. They had suffered those long months' together, waiting and hoping. In that time, he had been so unspeakably happy to show her the wonders of earth, and to see her eyes light up with interest, her lips poise around questions. There were so many things he'd wanted to tell her, that he'd wanted to show her. Just having someone who understood, someone who would listen, had been a blessing.

He wanted her away, because he wanted her safe. He'd never deserved her affection, but he'd clung to it in those long months, where the Princess had been so close and far at the same time. She saw him as more than Terran scum now, and he almost wished she didn't. It was so much easier to think that no one cared. It would be so much easier to let her disappear out of his life, if she only thought of him as some lowly Terran.

As Bach's Cello Suite No. 4 in E-flat Major concluded, the room was once again thrown into silence. He let his eyes drift closed as he heard the crinkling of the magazine paper the woman was fiddling with. The woman -he should ask what her name was, but he was to ashamed to find out it was also Kaizuka- made a hm sort of sound, and stood up. He opened his eyes, and looked at her general direction, but not at her.

"It's nice." She said, placing her magazine back into her bag. He nodded once in agreement, but it was barely noticeable. She shook her head. "I'll put in the other CD, but first, we're taking a walk." He watched the woman as she walked over to the foot of his bed, produced a key, and promptly removed the cuff on his ankle. "There." She turned back towards him, but he could tell that she was looking above his head, in an attempt to not look at him. She still didn't like to actually see him. He couldn't blame her for it, he was also thankful not to be on the receiving end of a mirror.

"That's off. I'll call the nurse and okay it. No trouble till then." Her command wasn't chiding or kind. It was forceful. He didn't know what to make of her.

She walked back over to the nurse call button by his right side, and pressed the little red button. Her eyes settled on the blue roses again, and more specifically, the card. The woman frowned. "What are the two means of blue roses?"

"Just what you'd expect." He muttered, looking at the roses again. They really were beautiful. "Miracles, or the impossible."

"Because they aren't natural?" His only answer was to nod, but he actually felt her eyes on him for just a flash. Oh why couldn't she be vile and mean? She sighed. "Guess that makes sense." Her eyes were thankfully back on the roses. "So, which one do you want?"

He looked at her in confusion for two seconds, before settling his eyes on something past her. Looking at her was hard. She motioned toward the card. "Which one would give you peace. The impossible, or a miracle?"

What an impertinent question. "Does it matter?"

The woman shrugged. "Sounds like the person who sent those knows you pretty well. Who's E?"

He averted his eyes back to the roses. "I don't know."

"You do know." And she said it with such authority, that he had no doubt she knew. "You know exactly who sent those. Keep your mouth shut for now, but if this becomes a problem, I won't let you lie about it in the future."

His answer was clear and unwavering. "It won't become a problem."

Silence lingered between them for a few moments, and he could feel her eyes boring into his skull. She was looking right at him, and it was horrible. "Good. You're way more agreeable these days, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt."

He wondered if she was lying, or telling the truth. It didn't really matter. What had trust ever gotten him anyway.


	31. Chapter 31

"You should go home." Rayet was faced towards him, but her eyes were not on him. They flickered back to him a few seconds later, and he looked at her inquisitively.

"I will be returning to work." Inaho stated. He did need to get back. This had been an insightful and surprisingly useful outing, but he had obligations. It wasn't an ideal way of expressing it, but it was adequate at that moment. He couldn't quite convince himself he wanted to go back, but he knew it was important. It was a place he needed to be. He hoped at some point that he would be able to even think of categorizing it as a place he wanted to be. "Yuki-nee will want to take you to dinner."

Inko nudged Rayet, and smiled. "Will Lucia be joining us?" She asked, tilting her head and angling her gaze towards the woman beside him. He blinked over at Lucia next to him.

She smiled, but shook her head no. "Thank you very much for receiving me so kindly. I had a wonderful time with everyone." She gave Inko a sincere, beautiful smile, then those green eyes were on Rayet. "I thank you for your candor. I'm afraid I don't have much talent at debates, but I hope we can speak, and share opinions again in the future. Never lose your strong opinions, and don't let anyone tell you that you are wrong for noticing injustices when most are willing to simply ignore them."

It wasn't what he had expected her to say, and he angled a sideways glance towards the woman next to him, before shifting his eye back towards Inko, who looked similarly stunned. "Inko." Within a few seconds her eyes were back on him, warm and inquisitive. "Thank you. Please do not worry about me. I'll see you again soon."

She blinked at him, and then smiled warmly. "Of course you will." She leaned down, and placed a finger into the small carrying case Lucia held in her hand. "I would hate not to see this little guy again."

"The kitten is female."

Rayet rolled her eye at him. "It was a figure of speech. You know that." A small mewl came out of the box, but Inaho found himself looking more at Rayet. She looked strange, and he couldn't place it. Instead, he let it go.

"You'll keep her for a little while? Till the guy she's for is back on his feet?" Inko asked, smiling down into the carrying cage.

"Yes." Inaho added.

"Then I'll get to see you again, cutie!" Inko swirled her finger around in the cage a few more time, before popping back up to her feet. "We'll see you soon, Inaho." She then turned to Lucia, and there was a soft smile on Inko's face. "I hope we see you again Lucia. It was wonderful to spend the day with you!"

From there, Rayet grunted something that might have been a farewell of some sort, and the two women closed the door of their hotel. In the few seconds interim, between that door closing, and them moving towards the elevator, Lucia looked at him. She seemed very, very tired. He motioned for her to go with him, and she nodded softly.

They stayed in companionable silence, as the two of them took the elevator to the ground floor. Lucia waited patiently for him to hobble through the lobby, and out into the open air. They called for a cab, and a few minutes later, one came and picked them up. They did not speak in the taxi either, but when they arrived at Inaho's apartment complex, they paid the cab, and wordlessly went to the apartment he shared with Yuki.

They placed down the carrying case, and Lucia looked up at him questioningly, before he nodded his head, and she smiled. Quietly, she opened up the case, so that a small little furry head poked out. It immediately went to paw at her fingers. Inaho watched for a few minutes, and in a flash of brilliance, it was no longer 'Lucia' but now the Empress Asseylum, sitting on his apartment floor, playing with a kitten that fit in her hands. He was surprised to find her hair cascading down her back. He'd only ever seen her with it down once, and it had been a very unpleasant experience.

"It's charming." She said warmly, as the small calico kitten jumped up into her lap and curled into a ball. "Slaine will adore it. It is kind, and affectionate."

Inaho looked at the kitten, and the contented smile on Seylum's face. The kitten was lying on its back in her lap, swiping at a long strand of golden blond hair. "It doesn't know any better yet. It is still young and impressionable. It will be up to him to make sure it gets love and affection."

She looked up at him, and he couldn't tell all of what was on her face. "Slaine is a kind person. I think it is because he is so kind, that he has suffered so much." Seylum reached down, and ran her hand over the exposed stomach of the kitten, which mewled up at her. "I might have suspected, when they took him away from me the first time, but it was easy to ignore. I tried not to trouble myself over it, and told myself that if it was happening, there was nothing I could do about it. Now, all I know is what others tell me. My sister, Eddelrittuo, my fiancé. They all seem to have much better ideas of who my childhood friend is than I do." She shook her head, and her hair flowed around her. He could see the cat's eyes mesmerized by the movement. "I fear, that I am actually quite insensitive and that it is only now that I am realizing it." She shook her head, and smiled again. "Slaine is not like me. He is genuinely kind. He will give this little thing the love and affection it deserves."

There were too many holes in her statements for him to process them entirely. Instead, he filed away his predictions, his assumptions, and his conclusions. Inaho placed the crutch against the wall of the apartment, and sat down across from her. He Reached out and poked the nose of the small kitten in her lap. "Animals are simplistic in their emotional needs. Physical reassurance is often all they require to know that we care. Humans are not so simple. We must communicate, we must speak, and we must run the risk of being misunderstood." He looked up at her. "I can say with a very high probability that if you wish to learn who Slaine Troyard is, you need only reach out to him, and listen."

Inaho knew, with absolute certainty, that he was not the person to be giving this sort of advice. He was not good at communicating. He was not good at being understood. Time and time again he failed to express his intentions, even when they were stated as plainly as he could possibly state them. It was frustrating. It was also frustrating not knowing what other people meant. But this day had reminded him, that despite his faults, he had people that cared about him. People that wanted to spend time with him, and were concerned, despite his social inabilities. He'd been slowly cutting himself free of them. Not answering calls, forgetting to read messages. It hadn't even seemed like a drastic change until earlier that very day.

Humans were social creatures. His sister had been ecstatic when he'd first met Inko, and they had become friends. She had known from the very start he needed friends, and somehow, despite his faults, things had fallen into place. The thought of how he had almost alienated that, was strange. It painted a very bleak image in his head of monotonous days. His sister had told him that he needed to empathize, and perhaps he understood that a little more now. "It doesn't have to be a lot. We have paper and pen. Yuki-nee says it is easier to correspond through letters. You can think about what you want to say, and it is easier to say what you need to."

Seylum blinked her beautiful green eyes at him, then looked down at the small kitten in her lap, who had tumbled over, and was now curled in her lap. "Perhaps you're right." She looked up and smiled at him. "I will."

Inaho nodded. "It will be a good gift. I'll wait for you." He looked down at the cat one more time, then looked up at her again. "But there is more we must discuss. Why are you here, Seylum?"

Her face went distant at his inquiry, but she didn't look away from him. "I have another request of you. One of a very similar nature."


	32. Chapter 32

"No. Take it back."

The look on Kaizuka's face would have almost been comical under different circumstances. It was a strange combination of befuddlement and reproach, all while maintaining his characteristic nonchalance. Not that Slaine enjoyed anything about Kaizuka, but he wished the circumstances were more optimal to appreciate it.

As it were, he found his current predicament very difficult. For one thing, Eddelrittuo was fiddling with the medical equipment next to him, and he had to work hard not to look at her. As if this whole thing wasn't hard enough, he could practically feel her disapproval, and he was suddenly reminded of how horribly he hated disappointing people. In his interactions with Kaizuka and everyone that now inhabited his poor, pathetic excuse of a life now, he had easily been able to categorize them as enemies (they were) and he had little remorse in their disappointment. In fact, he endeavored to have no emotional attachment to them at all, and he'd been rather successful, with the exception of Kaizuka himself, and the woman of course. Now, he felt the sting of Eddelrittuo's disappointment, and it hurt terribly. It was a sense of hurt he hadn't had in a long time. There was a difference in being ashamed of himself for what he'd done. It was an entirely different matter to have someone who genuinely cared about him concerned and disappointed. He thought, hypothetically, that if the Princess had just looked at him the way he knew Eddelrittuo was right that moment, and there had never been a gun between them, he never would have been able to deny her. He supposed it had been luck, or bad luck, or perhaps something as nefarious as fate.

He also was pointedly not looking at the adorable little creature in Kaizuka's hands. He'd gotten a good look at it as Kaizuka had hobbled into the room. It's big, inquisitive green eyes had peered out at him from the little carrying case. He'd instantly remembered a menagerie of strays in his life that he had befriended, adored, and had to abandon. He had to work to only look at Kaizuka, and to look directly at him for that matter, because if he didn't, he knew his eyes would be on the kitten. He'd caught himself already, and he couldn't afford a repeat. Focusing on Kaizuka, and his infuriating face, was much easier.

"Her." Kaizuka finally said after a long pause. "Not it, her. The kitten is female."

It would be like Kaizuka to argue semantics. "Take it back."

Eddelrittuo finished what she was doing at his side, and moved away from him. She walked slowly towards the door, pausing next to Kaizuka as she did. Her eyes lingered on the small bundle of fur, which mewled up at her. He implored her to say nothing, to do nothing, as a good servant should. She gave him one sad, disappointed look, and quietly left the room. It was enough to make his nausea worse, but he swallowed down the feeling, and did his best to ignore it.

Kaizuka was looking at him in that stubborn way, that guaranteed that he was not going to be outdone. "I'm allergic."

"You are not." The statement was as level as most everything Kaizuka said, but there was an edge to it. "I procured your complete medical records earlier this week. You are not allergic."

He didn't have a complete medical record. It didn't exist, and thus, Kaizuka shouldn't have it. I was a bluff, a strangely specific bluff, but a bluff none the less. As if reading his suspicion, Kaizuka elaborated, as he often did. "I first sought to find your records through Vers records. They perform conclusive medical examinations on all Terrans going into Vers, and likewise on military personal that have been on Earth."

He knew that. It had to deal with prejudice and paranoia on Vers of the multitude of Terran diseases that had not yet reared their ugly heads on Vers. Despite that, Kaizuka's statement was not enough to convince him. Vers might have performed an initial exam on him, but as long as they hadn't found anything, they wouldn't have kept that report. Such thing would have been long lost.

As if knowing his skepticism Kaizuka gently reached over, and placed the kitten in his lap. Oh good god it was warm, and he had to fight not to look down at it, as its big eyes looked up at him. He fisted his hands in the sheets at his sides.

"Unfortunately, those records seem to have disappeared. Vers kept all of your father's belongings and research, in hope that something would be useful towards furthering his studies, but no such record was found there either." Kaizuka looked at him, and cocked his head to the side. No surprise there. His father hadn't dealt much with either of their health.

"We were at an impasse at that point." Slaine noted the 'we' and narrowed his eyes. The cat in his lap was rolling around, trying to find the most comfortable position, and it kept looking at him. "Aide came from an unlikely source. The Emperor himself suggested a solution I would not have anticipated. And from the look on your face, neither did you."

Slaine would have glared, but thought it better to keep his irritation to himself. He attempted to keep his face blank, but it obviously wasn't working. Kaizuka had that self assured look on his face that Slaine absolutely hated. Had he lost his ability to hide his emotions, or was Kaizuka just able to read him better now? Either option was not a good scenario.

"On his suggestion, we checked with clan Saazbaum. To my amazement, it seems like your late, adopted father, had very detailed medical records for you. Suspiciously detailed, actually. We now have surprisingly comprehensive medical records for you." Saazbaum. Of course. Why hadn't he thought of it before? Because it was painful. The thought was disgustingly painful. He looked away from Kaizuka, but his eyes went straight down to the kitten, with its tail flicking, and its wide green eyes peering up at him. He had to look away from that too, so he settled on the blue roses. They were safe. Or at least, much safer than most of the things in this damned room.

Kaizuka had obviously expected him to say something, because the silence stretched between them for a much longer time than usual. But Slaine had no intention of filling that silence with sound, even if in its absence, the kitten in his lap was making the most adorable noises. Finally, Kaizuka did speak, and he was almost happy for the sound. "Thus, I can say with confidence, that you are not allergic to cats. Should you have any valid objections or concerns, I will hear them now."

There wasn't much he could say. He already liked the little thing squirming in his lap. He'd always wanted a pet, but he'd always wanted a pet sort of like he'd always wanted to be normal. The world didn't work that way. There was also the fact that the whole situation was entirely wrong. Attachment wasn't what he needed. He'd wanted it for most of his life, but that part was over now. He knew what it meant to get attached to things; it brought fulfillment and pain. One outcome so worth the other, that it hurt to deny it. But deny it he did.

As different as a kitten was from the cello, it would amount to the same thing. They would use it against him. If he didn't eat properly, they'd take it away, or worse, they'd hurt it. There would be nothing he could do, but comply. By taking it, (He knew better than to think his opinion mattered. Kaizuka wasn't going to take no as an answer.) he was giving away that choice. He'd never deny them anything now out of fear. But of course he couldn't tell Kaizuka that, and he couldn't tell Kaizuka no, either. Kaizuka had gone and picked a commitment for him, and one that could live for 20 years. There was no way this wasn't a planned, deliberate attempt to make him commit to something, when he'd refused all other ventures. There really were no questions, or objections to be made. Kaizuka wouldn't accept any of them, even if he had valid ones. He really only had one card to play.

"What would you do if I killed it?" Saying it made the nausea worse. It was an empty statement, he would never do anything of the sort, but Kaizuka didn't know that. He'd tried to murder Kaizuka. He'd used the Princess against her will. He'd murdered countless people on the battle field. Kaizuka doubtlessly knew all of these things, and perhaps more. He was a deplorable person; there was no argument - and no jury - that needed to be swayed. How could Kaizuka responsibly just hand him something innocent and trusting under such pretenses? It implied that Kaizuka either knew he would never hurt the thing, or that Kaizuka didn't care about the animal either. Slaine didn't want to seriously consider either option.

"I would have to reconsider how you're being handled." Kaizuka made no attempt to clarify his words, and Slaine figured he didn't need to. It was clear enough.

With a shallow exhale of breath, Slaine looked down at the small, adorable creature in his lap. Once it had realized it was being ignored, it had curled up into a ball, closed its eyes, and nestled itself into his lap. He slowly reached down, and pet it. It was so small, had he ever felt a cat this small before? He couldn't remember. Maybe he was just bigger now. He hadn't seen a pet since his time on Earth with his father. It had been so long ago. Its big green eyes opened, and looked up at him, before closing them, and starting to purr. He remembered reading in a book once that cats purred so that their mothers could find them. Now that he thought of it, he'd never heard any of the strays he'd met in his life purr. What a horrible thing Kaizuka was doing to both of them. The sweet thing in his lap had no idea that she was just another tool to manipulate him. She had no idea what was happening. She'd just been taken from her real mother, and wanted a replacement. Life wasn't fair.

"Her name?"

Kaizuka blinked at him inquisitively. "Excuse me?" It was only as Kaizuka inquired, that Slaine realized he'd only whispered the question. He shook his head, and looked up at Kaizuka more boldly than before.

"What is her name?"

Kaizuka tilted his head ever so slightly for a second, before speaking. "It is common practice that the person who owns the pet is the one that names it."

Slaine looked down at the kitten again. "I see." Well, he thought, he'd have to come up with something appropriate.


	33. Chapter 33

Kaizuka was waiting, looking at him in bland expectation. If Slaine hadn't felt so resigned at that moment, he would have been spiteful. As it were, he was having a hard time looking anywhere other than at the kitten in his lap. It was adorable, there really was no way around that, and it was a much better sight than Kaizuka, looming over at him impassively. For now, she was content to stay in her cute little ball, and to have him pet her. Simple thing, he thought.

But as expected, Kaizuka was not a patient person, and could not let them simply sit in silence, when he expected something. "It would be appropriate for you to name her." Slaine almost looked up at Kaizuka, but decided that the kitten was a much better focal point. She deserved the attention; she was a victim more than anyone else in this room.

"Why?" He answered, trying to keep his tone as bland and unemotional as Kaizuka's was. It wasn't really a useful game, he was playing. He'd already picked out a name, but he'd be damned if he just gave it up without some show of resistance.

Kaizuka blinked at him, in what Slaine could only speculate was annoyance. "She is your pet."

"Didn't she already have a name?" This was foolish on his part, and he knew it. It wouldn't matter, not even slightly, but he'd already consented to losing whatever little choice he had by accepting the kitten as his own. He couldn't physically protest anymore, so it felt like he had to at least let some part of his resentment show. Actions always spoke louder than words, but now those actions were more tied down than they had been before. He had to rebel in some way, even if it was still useless.

"I didn't ask." It almost sounded like Kaizuka meant to ask 'Should I have?' but of course, that was all wishful thinking on his part. To think that Kaizuka meant anything else by his statement was foolish.

He answered the question he wanted Kaizuka to have asked anyway. "You should have."

"I didn't think it relevant." 'Is it relevant?' was the question Kaizuka wasn't asking. The question Kaizuka was not going to ask. It was just as well that he hadn't, Slaine supposes.

"Do you know why kittens purr, Kaizuka?" Surprisingly, his question got no answer. He waited for a while, the kitten purring in his lap, as he gently ran his fingers over its delicate head. When he was sure that Kaizuka was not going to answer, had nothing to say, he continued. "Kittens purr when they want to reassure their mothers. It is a way of showing that everything is alright, and that the kitten is content."

Slaine spared a sideways glace to Kaizuka, but found nothing of interest on his face. He angled his glace down at the kitten in his lap again. She was quite content to keep purring. "She must realize you are her new owner. She has purred for no one else."

"I am not her mother." He found himself hissing the comment, completely appalled that Kaizuka had entirely missed the point of his statement. He tried to let the irritation seep out of him, but it would not go away. He hoped he hid it well.

For Kaizuka's part, he was silent for a few moments before speaking again. "You are protesting the separation of domesticated animals from their parents?" Whatever emotion he'd felt before, dissipated. How was it, that every single time he tried to assert himself, even if in only words, Kaizuka turned it on its head, and made him the fool. The rage that should have over taken him, instead drained. It was because he was a fool. Kaizuka was always going to win, and it didn't matter if he protested.

"Are you making an obscure metaphor?" Kaizuka's statement was uncharacteristically fast, but it was only a slight observation. Slaine suddenly had no energy to put up a fight. His stomach was churning horribly, and it really didn't matter if he did, or said, anything.

"It is a metaphor. What is it a metaphor of?" Kaizuka's tone was not normal, he could tell that much, but the thought occurred to him, and was gone. His stomach demanded attention, and his eyes widened, as he reached to cover his mouth. He had just enough time to lean over the side of the bed, before losing the contents of his stomach onto the hospital floor.

There was no way he could have stopped it, but shame overtook him. What a mess he'd made of everything. It might have been some comfort to see that Kaizuka was looking at him in bold faced shock, but he didn't catch it. He was too busy dry heaving, and struggling to breathe properly.

He could hear Kaizuka's footsteps, and the sound of his voice dolling out commands, but he couldn't register what was being said. It didn't really matter, what mattered was breathing, and at that exact moment, he was having trouble with it. The nausea had not gone away with his last meal, and he could feel mucus coating his throat. The feeling of liquid in his lungs had mostly gone away when they'd physically taken it out, but he could still feel some of it in there, churning as he heaved. He had to keep himself breathing normally, had to make sure that he didn't lose it, and start going psychotic again. He closed his eyes, and concentrated, told himself again and again that he was not drowning, that his heaving chest would continue to support him, that he was 'fine'. Because he would be 'fine' as long as Kaizuka dubbed it so.

A soft mewl pulled his attention outward, and with dazed eyes he looked over. The little kitten had retreated to the far corner of the bed, but now that he had quieted down, now that only his chest was heaving erratically, she had taken a few tentative steps forward. He stared at her wide inquisitive green eyes for a few seconds. He was unaware if Kaizuka had left or not, but he found himself unable to really think about much of anything.

He tried to wipe the vomit off of his face with the back of his hand, and then wiped that on the sheets. They'd have to be cleaned anyway, so what did it matter? Slowly, he reached out his other hand towards the little kitten. "Sorry." He muttered softly, around his deep breathes and allowed her to pad over towards him. Once she was within reach, he scooped her up into his arm, and deposited her on his other side, away from the vomit. "Sorry, Anemone. That was a bad first impression." The kitten simply nuzzled into his side, and he pet her with the hand that hadn't been covered in vomit.

He smiled ruefully. "I seem to make bad first impressions." The kitten only purred up at him, and he couldn't help smiling down at her.

"Sorry, Anemone." He muttered once more, and felt things within himself settle. Soon enough, there would be other people there to clean up his mess, to cart him away to a different place, or find something that was going to fix him again. But for that moment, all that mattered was the little kitten snuggled up beside him, that didn't care that he smelled like throw-up, or that he had ruined most of the known world. Maybe that would be enough for now.


	34. Chapter 34

"I think Inaho is worried about you." Eddelrittuo stated softly, as she led him to a new room. She'd mentioned that they'd wanted to move him before, but now obviously seemed like an opportune time to do so. The room he'd been in would need to be cleaned.

Slaine thought about how he could answer her without being rude, because she didn't deserve such behavior. Even if the statement was a boldface betrayal, he couldn't dislike her for it. But, he couldn't seem to come up with anything genuine to say. He figured it didn't matter. The guard holding the excessively large gun was striding behind them, and Slaine had already decided not to involve Eddelrittuo any further. He didn't want the hired help getting any ideas that he liked her, or that they had any connection.

There were also the contents of her statement to consider, which were heavily weighted and set up her obvious biases. That was fine, he decided. He would let her think what she wanted, as he always had. Slaine saw little hope in swaying her opinion. She didn't understand, and that was alright. It was better if she didn't, he reminded himself.

He padded along beside her with Anemone cradled in the nook of his arm. Her bright green eyes were looking around at her new surroundings in wonder. Slaine wondered if she'd grow out of that wide eyed inquisitive look. He hoped she wouldn't, but it was likely inevitable. Living with him, she'd get used to the same places day in and day out, and everything would likely seem dull and useless. He pet her head, scratching softly at the back of her ears, and she stretched up to meet his hand, meowing at him. Anemone didn't look at him, but he was pretty sure she wanted him to continue petting her, so he did just that. A few moments later, she started to purr again. He almost smiled. At this rate, he was liable to get attached to the sound. He wondered if he'd be able to get things for her, like treats, and toys to play with. He hoped so, but he couldn't find himself very optimistic about the situation. It was likely that she'd just have to settle for him. For now, she seemed more than happy to do just that, but he wondered how long it would last until she got tired of him. He resolved to enjoy the company while it lasted.

"She seems very sweet." Eddelrittuo's statement brought his attention away from the adorable little being in his arm, and back towards her. They had reached the room in question, and she was motioning for him to go inside, a soft smile on her face. He was glad she hadn't asked him something, he would have answered instinctively, since he hadn't been paying attention. He nodded to her, once, then remembered the guard behind him, and made it seem like he was stretching out his neck. It probably worked; the guard hadn't been paying too much attention.

The new room was much nicer. Its window was larger, and as Eddelrittuo had reported, it faced ocean cliffs. From here, he could see seagulls and waves teaming, and it gave him noticeable pause for far too long. Long enough for Anemone to get impatient that he wasn't petting her anymore, and meow up at him in irritation. The noise brought him out of his sudden shock, and he looked down at her, then he reached to continue petting and scratching her. She mewled in approval.

"This bed." Somehow, he hadn't noticed Kaizuka standing by the bed closest to the window. The deep blues of the ocean contrasting to the blinding whites of the hospital room had obviously been enough to truly distract him. It really was a breathtaking view, if only Kaizuka wasn't looming in his periphery to ruin it.

Kaizuka had picked the bed closes to the window. He motioned again for Slaine to get into the bed, and Slaine meekly complied. Even if he'd wanted to be churlish, or openly spiteful, he had Anemone in his hands. That quickly silenced just about any actual thread of resistance within him. He slowly padded over to the bed, and waited for Kaizuka to remove the cuffs on his ankles. He found it ironic that they'd left his hands free, since he would be carrying Anemone. There was something disgustingly poetic about that, but he found himself lacking his usual spite. He was tired, and she was warm in his arms.

Once Kaizuka had removed one of the cuffs around his ankles, Slaine slipped into the bed, and made no resistance as Kaizuka cuffed him down to the bedpost. Anemone took the opportunity to go bouncing around on his stomach, hunting folds in his loose clothing. He watched her bound up and down, because she was the most pleasant thing inside the room to witness, and because he was afraid she might tumble out of the new bed in her excitement; the rails hadn't been swung up yet.

There was a dull, weary part of him that repeated over and over that he was being too obvious. He liked the kitten too much. They were going to take her away. He'd be sad when it was done. He'd regret getting attached. He solemnly admitted that all of these things were true, but he countered it the exact same way he had with the cello; he was a dead man, what did he actually have to lose? He figured he had best lavish this deserving creature with as much attention as his wrenched heart was able, to make up for the fact that the poor thing had been unceremoniously handed to him, of all people.

Kaizuka unceremoniously swung up the guard rails in the bed with a loud bang, and Anemone jumped in shock and dashed to hide under his waist. It was amusing, to say the least, but he scowled at Kaizuka in Anemone's defense. But Kaizuka's eye wasn't on him, but instead the kitten. Then that one eye shifted to him for a few second, before dismissively looking away. Slaine watched as Kaizuka turned, and headed towards the window, but settled his eyes back down onto Anemone. She snuggled into his side, and nudged him for more petting. He dutifully complied.

Anemone was nudging her head up at him affectionately, when Slaine heard what could only be the opening of the window, and he stopped breathing. He'd had a soft breeze from the window in the other room, but this was different. He could so clearly hear the crashing of the waves, and the cawing of the gulls, and smell the sea spray in the air. It might have all been suggestion, how could all these things improve from one side of the hospital to the next, but it didn't matter.

Eddelrittuo had been right. He loved this room.

He could listen to the sea and the gulls all day, and smell the scent of the ocean. He'd always known that surroundings mattered, moving from place to place taught you that, but it struck him full force in that instant. If even the ocean, with its temper, it's malevolence, could comfort him so completely with only it's presence, he thought that maybe he should have just let himself drown three years ago when his sky carrier had gone down.

It was a foolish thought. He never would have been able to pass on peacefully with the Princess in such danger, but in hindsight, perhaps he shouldn't have struggled so hard. Orange would have saved her from Saazbaum, she would have restored order and reason to world without all his needless toil, and he'd be a corpse, long eaten by whatever opportunistic thing in the ocean found him first. He wondered what that world would have looked like. Certainly it would have been much kinder due to his early departure. The princess would have restored peace much sooner than she had due to his treacherous meddling. And he'd be a no one, a foot note in the biographies they'd write of his father. When people heard the name Troyard, it would be about Aldnoah, about science, not murder and the horrors of invasion.

His musings were brought to an abrupt halt, when Anemone hoped onto his chest, and started pawing at him. He looked away from the window, and the sea, and the bids, and the oblivion of dark depths, and pet her. She purred, and settled to lie down on his chest. For now, this would be enough, he resolved.

Of course nothing would ever be that simple with Kaizuka there to muck up what little solace he could find.

"Why did you refuse the kitten?" Somehow, since being transported to the room, both Eddelrittuo and the guard had vanished. Eddelrittuo had likely moved on to other duties, where as the guard was probably stationed outside the closed door. He was alone in the room, with Kaizuka sitting on a chair beside his bed, looking at him with that one lone eye.

Slaine gave him one dead look, then focused his attention back onto Anemone. When it became apparent that he was not going to answer, Kaizuka predictably continued. "My first conclusion was that you simply did not like animals. Had you said as much, I would not have forced it upon you." That was too easy. That was blatantly false and they both knew it. If he'd said he didn't like animals, there would have been an interrogation, and Kaizuka probably would have ended up getting him a fish or something instead. He thought about showing his distaste for the conversation, but let it go. Anemone was purring, and that was far more worthy of his attention.

"Your swift acceptance of the animal contradicts my first conclusion, but is in line with a large percentage of your behaviors up to date." How pleasant, Kaizuka was going to sum up the past 9 months of his life in a few pithy sentences that could have come out of a psychology text book. Just what he'd wanted when he got up that morning. "You consistently deny yourself comforts. From the books you've been provided, that you enjoyed only in the safety of evening at first, to daily necessities that are essential to your health such as food. Whenever I inquired about things that would make your stay more comfortable and pleasant, you consistently refused to answer." Kaizuka paused, and Slaine thought about saying something, anything to just get him to shut up, but the moment passed.

Kaizuka started talking again. "There was a marked difference upon receiving the cello. You started reading the books that were provided in broad daylight, and you actively invested time in practicing the cello. For all intensive purposes, you enjoyed it, which makes your next reaction entirely unforeseen."

Slaine expected Kaizuka to go into more detail than that, but after a noticeable silence, he found that Kaizuka was not going to. "This situation is similar, yet also strikingly different from the cello. You took an active part in having the cello procured, and your behavior only changed once you were reassured that you would receive it, not after you had received it. This implies some form of intent. Indeed you carefully timed your intended execution, and it was mostly luck that you were unsuccessful. You premeditated that attempt." Slaine almost thought that he heard reproach in Kaizuka's impassive voice. He dismissed it, and kept petting Anemone, he didn't even look up at Kaizuka. Instead, he tried to memorize the curves of her face, the tufts of her whiskers. "You had little choice in this proceeding, so I am confident that you are not attempting anything, but I am cautious to characterize your attachment as positive considering your history thus far."

"Why did you bring her here?" He surprised himself with how bland and disinterested the statement sounded.

There was a quick pause, which seemed to indicate that Kaizuka had not expected him to speak. "To provide you something that could give you stable companionship."

"Then you emerge victorious again, Kaizuka." Anemone rolled over, so that she was on her back, and her stomach was stretched out before him. It was a pretty obvious indicator of what she wanted, so Slaine reached over and gently scratched at her stomach.

He made a point of not looking at Kaizuka. "Why did you refuse the kitten?" It was Kaizuka's way of asking why he had refused everything else as well. As they almost always did, they'd finally come full circle as to why Kaizuka had asked such a question.

There would be no forthcoming answer. He hoped Kaizuka would grow tired of this, and return to meddling with his phone, as he often did.

"If you do not tell me why you objected, I will not know." It was such an uncharacteristic statement from Kaizuka that Slaine almost laughed.

He didn't try to stop the glint in his eyes as he looked over at Kaizuka's one red eye. "That is the point."


	35. Chapter 35

Inaho liked to stay objective, and that usually meant he kept his emotions rather in check. That didn't mean he didn't have them, he most certainly did. It did mean that it was his goal to not let those emotions become so obvious as to hinder his more logical conclusions.

At that exact moment, he was quite concerned his well kept objectivity was not going to last the afternoon. He had not previously thought he had an obvious tipping point, considering the vast amount of accomplishments in the war where he had been able to keep a level head. He was quickly realizing he had been wrong about this fact. Of course, looking at it from a more historic point of view, perhaps Slaine Troyard had always inspired extreme cases of ire and irritation in him. That point was undeniably obvious in that moment, as Slaine played with his new kitten, and proceeded to ignore him.

In the months that had followed the end of the war, Inaho had found it easiest to treat Slaine with a sort of obvious disinterest. He came once every two weeks, allowed Slaine not to really participate, and dutifully answered concerns that the warden presented to him. It had been a minimal effort, but it had seemed like plenty at the time. He couldn't say he was exceptionally happy to be visiting Slaine Troyard, and he was rather sure the feeling was mutual.

It had taken Slaine almost killing himself to pull Inaho into the situation more seriously, and now he was suddenly aware of why he had chosen his previous format to begin with.

Slaine Saazbaum Troyard was one of the most irritating people Inaho had ever met, and he had to deal with people at the top of the UFE from time to time. He now distinctly remembered he had chosen his former aloof nature to counter this fact, something he had since forgotten in the long months of quiet apathy and weekly status reports on Monday mornings.

It had been equally easy to forget this fact when Slaine had almost died and had been hospitalized for his own poor decisions. Inaho's objectivity had wavered, and at the time, Inaho had felt that it was his personal neglect that had caused the situation. Now that he looked at it more rationally, it likely had played some part in the situation, but it was not the only factor, or perhaps even the predominant one. It never was just one thing, when dealing with Slaine Troyard.

From now on, Inaho would have to figure out how best to manage his own time, and what of it he would allow to Slaine from this point forward. He had swung from hardly any contact, to almost constant interaction quite rapidly, and there needed to be some form of medium between the two. He couldn't keep up his former apathy, or it was likely Slaine would backslide back into complete silence again. But at the same time, if he dedicated to much time to the pursuit, he ran the risk of jeopardizing his own stability. Neither was an acceptable option. He also had a strong suspicion that Slaine was also not fond of his more frequent vigilance, if his cutting remarks were anything to go by.

Managing time had always been something he'd been rather poor at. Inaho tended to be slow by nature, so managing his time had always been a necessary activity in his life. It was in stark contrast to Yuki, who was always late to everything, and rushed no matter what she was doing. His solution to time management had always been to simply reallocate time to different things, while dropping others that were no longer as relevant. School work and house work had taken up a lot of his time before the war, but had been nonexistent during it. Now, he was suffering from having to rework his whole schedule around the fact that one highly erratic person under his care was having suicidal, combative tendencies.

He felt clinical looking at the situation so distantly, but he could feel his irritation slipping away at the resurgence of his reason. Logic was the solution to this problem, even if it seemed like Slaine did not work on logic, even slightly.

Inaho couldn't be sure if the irritation had shown on his face, but he hoped it hadn't. It usually didn't; people found him difficult to read, and that was a definite comfort.

"How often would you like me to visit?" This was likely foolish. Slaine would simply mock his efforts at being civil, as he had not five minutes ago. Still, the simplest solution to a problem was often to ask. It made sense to start there. Perhaps Slaine would take some initiative, instead of having Inaho make all of the choices for him.

Slaine looked at him out of the corner of his eye with open scorn on his face, before settling his gaze down at the kitten on his chest. Inaho couldn't really blame him; the cat was a rather pressing distraction, and one that wanted his attention. Still, that didn't make anything easier.

"Though I gauge that my interaction with you has some effect on your state of being, the amount of which it does is highly questionable. I am giving you the option to assert your opinion about what I am doing, and how often I work visits into my schedule." He thought that perhaps Yuki would have told him he was not being tactful, but he saw little use in such a thing normally. He saw even less reason to be tactful with Slaine.

He waited for an appropriate amount of time for Slaine to respond, knowing very well that nothing of the sort would be forthcoming. Once that suitable amount of time had passed, Inaho went on. "Without your input, I will not consider your feelings in the matter, so if you want to speak, now would be the time for it."

This would be his last prompt, and since he was quite sure Slaine would say nothing, he used the silence between them to start arranging a schedule in his head. When there was no response, as he had predicted, Inaho started speaking again. "I will make an effort to visit three times a week." And because he most certainly needed a tactical retreat. "I should return in a few days. Do as the nurses, doctors, and guards tell you till then."

With that statement made, Inaho stood, and moved to the corner of the room, where he'd placed the small little carrier. When he'd turned back around, the feeling in the room was very different. Slaine had shifted, and scooped the kitten into his arms. It almost looked like he wanted to protect her. In response, Anemone was licking, and nudging at his face. Slaine's eyes were a blaze with emotion, of which Inaho could not place. Inaho looked at him impassively. Did Slaine think this was some sort of punishment? Or that he would have been able to keep the kitten in the hospital?

Inaho blinked impassively at the stance. "It is unsafe for her to remain here unsupervised. You can't even leave the bed to pick her up if she jumps off. The most logical course of action is for me to keep her, until you have been discharged. At that time, she will remain with you indefinitely. Until then, she can only visit." The fire in Slaine's eyes had not diminished, but he was looking down at the kitten in his arms, snuggling up against his face instead. Inaho couldn't tell what he was thinking, just that whatever it was, burned with a great intensity. He wondered, in an absurdly metaphorical sense, how often that flame had burned him.

"It is for her own safety. If she jumps down, and wanders out, or away from the room, she could easily be stepped on, or hurt."

They spent a long time in silence. He didn't know how, but Inaho knew that he was not allowed to move forward without Slaine's permission. It was a strange thought, since he had never really allowed such a thing in the past, but in that instant, he knew to keep his distance until given permission. It was a warning he'd only ever heard once, and hadn't followed, to dire consequences. The stakes were certainly nowhere near the level they had been then, but it confused him the intensity in which he was being regarded.

Slaine didn't look at him again, but at some point, he nodded his head in acknowledgement. Inaho took it for permission to move forward, and crossed the space between them in a few well placed strides. He held up the case, and opened it. He expected that Slaine would simply hand the cat over to him, but instead gently laid the kitten inside it. The kitten bit his hand hard in the process, obviously displeased about going back into the cage. Once it was in there, Slaine pet it a few more times, and prevented it from escaping as it whined piteously, then shut the cages door.

"She is attached to you." This was meant as a compliment and general observation towards Slaine and Anemone's budding relationship. By the way Slaine glared at him, it was as if he'd threatened to murder the cat. He chose to remain quiet with whatever other kind comments he had to say. "I will return in a few days." He stated, and turned towards the door.

"..sooner." Inaho almost hadn't caught the statement, as his feet had carried him to the door. It had been soft, and he hadn't caught all of it, just the tail end. The wailing of the kitten had also not helped his situation. But he had heard it. He stopped for a second and turned his head back around.

"Pardon?"

Slaine swallowed, his eyes downcast, locked on the carrying case. "Bring her back sooner." Whereas the first statement had hardly been there, the second was a demand. Inaho was prepared to respond in kind, when Slaine spoke again. "If she is my pet, and not some trinket you can use against me, then bring her back sooner."

Inaho only realized he hadn't answered Slaine when he was already heading down the elevator. He'd had much to contemplate with the statement out in the open. He might have offered some dismissive answer, but he couldn't remember. Anemone had quieted down once Slaine was out of her sight, and had instead curled in the back of the carrying case, looking around at everything with inquisitive eyes. Inaho was surprised how deceptively simple it all was, perhaps because he never would have considered it himself. Interesting, he thought, as he exited the elevator, and the hospital. Very interesting.


	36. Chapter 36

AN: A whole week is a long time to wait. I apologize, but I don't see me working any faster in the near future. I have no intention of dropping this, so I hope that at least that is a consolation.

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Slaine woke to the sound of someone entering his room early the next morning. He chose not to really show he'd woken up, and to keep his breathing shallow, and his eyes closed. He could still hear the waves crashing outside the window, and the cries of the gulls as they searched for food. It had been a calming presence his whole time in the new room, and he felt that for once, he had slept quite soundly, without dreams or nightmares. It was a relief; he didn't have any need for either, though he was sure he deserved the nightmares.

It was rather strange that in the constant din of the sea, he could easily pick out the quiet sound of the door opening, and of feet softly padding over to his bedside, but Slaine did not question it. It was a sound out of the norm, and he was well used to years of paying attention to those. Not even the ocean's waves could calm him down enough to ignore that.

He imagined it was one of the nurses. Perhaps Eddelrittuo, or one of the others, though Eddelrittuo seemed to be the most vigil in his care. It wasn't really a comfort, but it did put him at ease just a little. It was a conflict, having her care for him, since he was not entirely interested in getting better. In the same breath, neither was he interested in wasting her hard effort. He hoped that her months of learning, and her choice in placement had not been in direct relation to him, but Eddelrittuo had always been rather transparent with her feelings and intentions. It was selfish to think that she had made such a decision for his sake, but the thought festered in him anyway. He hoped it was not true. The best answer was simply to distance himself, to not pay her the attention she was due, but that was difficult. She didn't deserve such mistreatment.

As the one figure came in, the guard who had been seated in the room, rose to her feet, and left. He had to be watched at all times, but that didn't mean anyone enjoyed the effort. It was common practice that the guards would take any chance they got to simply switch with the hospital staff even if it meant leaving the room for a few moments. It would have been foolish, if he had any intention of using someone in the hospital as a hostage, but Slaine did not. He found the whole idea distasteful. One more victim in the scheme of things wouldn't matter even slightly, but now that he only had his own interests in mind, it seemed impossible. He'd murdered and terrorized millions, all in the name of Princess Asseylum's perfect world; now that he was the only one to gain from such an underhanded effort, it was hardly even worth thinking about. How horrible he was, that he could do such horrible things in her name, yet couldn't even muster the effort to dirty his own hands when it was for himself.

The thought was a bitter one, but it evaporated when a small meow rang over the din of the waves. Slaine blinked his sleepy eyes open, and saw Kaizuka sitting at the chair by his bedside, Anemone in the small carrying case she had been in before. His eyes were drawn to her instantly, and Kaizuka's presence faded into the background. Unashamed, Slaine reached over, and stuck one of his fingers inside the cage. Anemone inspected it for a second as if she was going to bite it, but then decided to lick it instead.

Kaizuka said he would be back in a few days, not the next day. Had his words prompted the change? It was hard to say. Certainly it was more beneficial for Kaizuka if he became much more attached to the kitten, so he wasn't about to give Kaizuka the benefit of any doubt.

With a few swats of his hand, Kaizuka pushed Slaine's hand away from the cage so that he could open it. Obviously anticipating the cage being open, Anemone bounded out of the case, jumping far enough to land squarely on Slaine's bed. She then happily pranced and jumped over to his lap, and started rolling around in the sheets. Slaine watched her with calm interest.

"I brought these." Kaizuka stated plainly. Slaine thought about ignoring him, but opted against it. Even though Kaizuka likely had ulterior motives for returning so quickly, he had brought Anemone back, as Slaine had told him too. That was enough of a reason to offer some form of acknowledgement as a reward.

He looked up, and saw that Inaho was rifling through a canvas bag with the UFE logo on it. He was thinking about how moronic it was to have a military insignia on a shopping bag, when Inaho produced three large balls of yarn, one red, one orange, and one blue. Slaine gazed at the items incredulously, as Inaho shifted his head around, looking for a place to put them. Kaizuka blinked, which might have meant a lot of things. Slaine chose to interpret it as some form of bemusement. "You seem to have acquired a number of things in the past few days." Slaine looked around, and had to admit that Kaizuka had a point.

To the right was the plastic vase the woman had swapped out, with the blue roses in them. Next to that were the three slim books that had been left for him to read. On the right, there was the old beat up CD player, and the CD that accompanied it, and of course, there was a kitten, happily burrowing into the folds of the sheets. His area had become a little cluttered.

"Take the books back." He answered evenly, and nodded his head towards them.

Kaizuka did just that. He grabbed them with one hand, and replaced them with the yarn. He then put them in his lap for a moment, and leafed through their pages. "These are nonsense." Kaizuka stated. "I'll find more suitable material." He then slipped them into the canvas bag.

"It doesn't matter what you bring. If you bring more of those, bring them more frequently, or in larger volume. I read them too fast."

Kaizuka looked up at him, Slaine could tell that much, but he'd turned his attention to the blue ball of yarn, and was not paying attention to Kaizuka. He retrieved it from the bedside table, and placed it in front of Anemone. The kitten stopped what she was doing, and instantly pounced on the thing.

"You read quickly." Slaine only had eyes for Anemone, as she rolled around with the ball of yarn, but he saw Kaizuka pull something else out of his bag, and set it down. A quick glance revealed the thing to be a pink plastic crochet hook. That grabbed Slaine's attention. Next out of Kaizuka's UFE canvas bag came a beginner's book on crochet, which seemed to boast an array of cute little animal patterns. Kaizuka was going to place it on the bedside table, but then seemed to think better of the idea, and instead offered it over to Slaine.

Slaine stared at it as if it was poisonous.

"Did you enjoy them?" It took Slaine a moment to realize Kaizuka had spoken.

He blinked up at Kaizuka with an obvious frown on his face. "What?"

"The books." Kaizuka clarified, still handing the crochet book out towards Slaine. "The romance ones. Did you enjoy them?"

Slaine shook his head at the question, still looking at what was being offered to him. This was ludicrous. None the less, he reached out and took it. "It doesn't matter." Slaine found himself staring at the pink and purple bubble letters of the title 'Crochet Made Easy!' and the 'ages 5+' in the corner. His mind was completely blank.

"That was expensive." Kaizuka said. "Yarn is also not cheap. I expect a carrying case for my phone and tablet when you've figured out the mechanics." Slaine was still staring at the book in bafflement, so as usual Kaizuka went on without needing more prompting. "If you give me an idea of what books you would like to read, you will enjoy them more."

Slaine did not look up, he was too busy looking at the very cute crochet mouse the book had. If he could make the tail longer, it would be a perfect toy for Anemone. "It doesn't matter" he mumbled, not really sure what Kaizuka had said, and still to shocked to really ignore him.

After he'd taken a thorough look at the various projects the book had -he noted that there was a pattern for a phone carrying case- he placed the book down, and looked up at Kaizuka. "What is...this?" Slaine asked, completely mystified. He motioned to the book in his lap, and the balls of yarn.

Kaizuka had since pulled out his tablet, and was tapping away at it. He did not look up at Slaine when he spoke. "You refuse to make choices for yourself that are positive and healthy, so I have made this one for you. I have procured you a hobby, and the means by which you can learn it." Kaizuka did look up just then, his one red eye appraising Slaine, and the kitten still tumbling around in his lap. "Though not a cheap hobby, crochet will allow you to make toys and supplies for Anemone, basic clothes to keep yourself warm, and is a healthy, repetitive task where you are actively creating. Thus, finished products will be useful tools in your everyday life, and also allow you some sense of accomplishment when they are completed. They also take a lot of time, something you do not lack."

Slaine looked down at the book in his lap again. "What if I make a noose for myself?" He inquired, trying to find some way out of this. It was useless, and he wasn't even sure why he was trying, but the question came out of his mouth regardless. This was a decent idea, he had been concerned about being able to get toys for Anemone, and this was a clever solution to that concern. Still, the fact that it had come from Kaizuka was enough to question it, and to resist it, even if it was only thinly so.

Kaizuka gave him a long look, and gave a small puff of air out of his nose. Slaine thought it felt like a sign of irritation. "Crochet works off of patterns. I certainly will not be supplying you with such a pattern in the near future, and it will take you time to figure out how to make something like that on your own. If you really have such intentions, you'd better start practicing."

Slaine frowned. "I could choke myself with the-" He motioned towards the pink plastic hoop. "whatever the hell that is." The actual term escaped him.

"Crochet hook." Kaizuka stated, and looked back down at his tablet. "You could have easily choked yourself on your necklace if you'd really wanted to. You also could have hung yourself with the bed sheets or your clothes ages ago. You did neither, and you will do no such thing now, under suicide watch."

Slaine could only glare. "You..." He couldn't find an appropriate word to finish that statement with. Instead of giving Kaizuka any more of his time, Slaine turned his eyes back down to Anemone. She really was having a lot of fun with the yarn.

"I was not joking. I do expect cases for my phone and tablet."


	37. Chapter 37

Yuki-nee's car was in the parking lot when he walked up to the apartment from the bus stop two streets over. She wasn't supposed to be there. If he had known she would be, he wouldn't have stopped by the library first. He would have come back to the apartment to drop off Anemone, then would have departed for the library, and called Rayet and Inko to arrange dinner right after. He had expected her back later.

Inaho thought about calling the girls, and arranging dinner ahead of time, so that he would have an excuse to leave rather promptly, and not spend much alone time with his sister, but Inaho quickly abandoned the idea. That was all rather foolish. Instead, he simply walked up the stairs, mindful of his cast and entered into their apartment.

What he did not expect, was to find someone other than Yuki sprawled across their very comfortable couch, and of all the people that could have been on his couch, Calm Craftman was not one that he would have calculated for. But none the less, there was Calm, sitting on their couch, flipping through channels. He stopped when Inaho opened the door, and the two of them stared at each other for a few moments. "Aren't you suppose to have your arm in a sling?" Calm finally spoke, motioning with his hand -which still held the remote- towards Inaho's right arm. "And a crutch?"

Inaho walked over to the couch -he was getting a lot better at moving around with his injuries- and sat down next to Calm. He then lifted the carrying case he held in his left arm up into his lap, and opened up the case. Anemone came diving out at lightning speed, and the look of surprise on Calm's face was well worth the accusations. "I find both cumbersome and unnecessary." Inaho stated, as he watched Anemone make herself comfortable on Calm's lap, and stare up at the newcomer expectantly.

For whatever reason, the kitten did not like Inaho, and seemed to intentionally pick everyone else she could to gather attention from. Though, Inaho did notice she had the strongest preference for Slaine, and always fought hardest when she was being taken away from him. In fact, whenever Inaho had to get her into the carrying case to leave the apartment, she was more than happy to get in, since she'd already started associating those trips with going to see Slaine. But her obvious bias didn't stop her from showing general affection for others. If Slaine was right about why kittens purred, Anemone had already adopted him as 'mom', but everyone else in the world, except for Inaho, was still quite fascinating to her.

"You take it with you when you leave!?" Calm's question was in disbelief, as the kitten stared up at him imploringly. He eventually placed the remote on the coffee table, and reached down towards the kitten. She pawed playfully at his hand, keeping her claws retracted.

"Is there a problem with it?" Inaho asked. He was aware that there were risks involved. If Anemone got out of the case for some reason, they'd have a very hard time locating her, and the chance of injury would be high, but he figured as long as he was careful, the chances of those things would be rather minimal. He expected Slaine would backslide horribly if something were to happen to the kitten, and he was having enough problems regarding the inmate without the extra strain. Inaho was more than happy to avoid it.

Calm scrunched up his face. "Guess not." Calm looked over at him, and Inaho had a difficult time trying to decide what that gaze meant. "You look like you need a dog though, not a cat. You have to admit, you look pretty mangled. A service dog would have been a better choice."

Inaho blinked. "The animal isn't for me." Why was this such an issue? Couldn't his friends get together and gossip about his motives like normal friends did? That way he could have just skipped this little clarification again? Or, well, he assumed that was what normal friends did. He didn't really have much to base the theory on, and now that he thought about it, his rag tag group of war veteran friends didn't really count as normal, did they? They had once, but they didn't really now. Whatever sense of normality they'd had before the war was long gone. It struck him, once more, that he hadn't stuck around after the war to find out what their new sense of normal was. Was Inko dating? What was Calm working on that had kept him away? Inaho didn't have answers to these questions, and he suddenly felt woefully unprepared to interact once again with what he had once perceived as 'normal' people. It was not a comforting thought.

Calm let the kitten chase his hand around playfully, and didn't look up at him. "So I've heard." Was what he said, and Inaho thought 'Oh', because he had simply assumed that the rest of them had not informed Calm, as they wouldn't have informed him. He reminded himself he wasn't interested in the idle concepts of gossip, but instead in the fact that he had been excluded in some way. And this was all despite the fact that he had intentionally excluded himself for some time now. It was all in poor taste, and it made him feel entirely inadequate as a social, functioning human being. "But you might want to consider a dog." Calm stated simply. "A retired police dog would do you some good. You could keep it on your blind side, and the whole situation on Mars might have gone better if you'd had one."

Inaho blinked. "You've thought about this." It came as some surprise.

"Little bit" Calm admitted, and quickly snatched the kitten up, as it almost went tumbling over the side of the couch in its excitement.

"It would have landed on its feet." Inaho said, watching as Calm set the kitten down on the side of the couch, and it buried it's head into the couch cushions, before jumping up to the top of the couch, and stalking over to paw at Calm's shoulders and neck.

Calm gave him one of those 'are you serious' looks, that he used to give Okisuke. It was more than mildly insulting to be on the receiving end. "Just because something can land on its own, doesn't mean you should let it fall."

Inaho hummed to himself. "I suppose."

Calm then rolled his shoulders, and scooped up the kitten off of the top of the couch, and offered it to Inaho. The kitten hissed, and squirmed out of his hold, before dashing off to a different part of the house. "It doesn't like me."

Calm shrugged, as he watched the kitten dash off, likely to go find Yuki, another one of her more preferred humans. "Guess not." Then Calm was looking back at him. "Think about it. The dog I mean. They're smart, loyal, good for exercise" Calm rapped on Inaho's cast at that point "and they aren't as picky as cats. And you are a little on the disabled side at this point."

Inaho nodded once in silent agreement to seriously consider the option, but he wondered if Calm knew that's what he meant or not. "I have Yuki-nee, I don't need any pets."

"I heard that!" Came the irritated voice of his older sister as she came round the corner with a very please kitten in her arms. Yuki glared at him playfully for a few seconds, before shaking off her mild irritation. "We were headed to dinner with the girls. You are coming, right Nao?" That really wasn't a question, and he knew it.

"Of course."


	38. Chapter 38

They met Rayet, Inko, and to Inaho's surprise, Nina, at a nice restaurant, after a car ride where Inaho took the back seat, and Yuki and Calm did the rather expected thing, and caught up with one another. That was not inherently strange, but it made him wonder. If they hadn't covered this while he was gone, before he'd come home to find Calm sitting nonchalantly on their couch, what had they talked about? He had a decent idea, and would have rather left that unsaid and unasked.

Yuki, ever the social devotee of their small family, asked all of the pertinent questions, and Calm dutifully, and politely answered most of them. Inaho noted that Calm only avoided a few of Yuki's questions, but he didn't focus on what they were, or why Calm had avoided them. Calm liked Yuki, perhaps not necessarily as a woman, but as a person, and people acted weird when they genuinely liked another person. It made sense that perhaps Calm wouldn't want to answer certain things. His closest male friend had always gotten along better with his older sister than with him. They talked more, and it unnerved him that sometimes those conversations were about him. What did they say when he wasn't around? It was a hard thought to dismiss, which was odd, since he usually didn't care what others would say or think about him, it was all inconsequential, but between his sister and his friend, it felt far more important.

Inaho had to stop his train of thought, and remind himself that Yuki had been Calm's teacher, as she had with most of his friends, and thus, she had a vested, professional interest in their futures. Inaho was not one of her only interests, and she likely didn't go around everywhere talking about him like a proud mother. It made sense for her to show interest in Calm, not only as Inaho's friend, but as someone she had taught, and seen grow in the war. The thought reminded him that he was being rather self centered and petty, so he tunes out most of the conversation in favor of clicking away on his cell phone. He could still hear most of what they were saying, but he didn't really pay too much attention to it.

When they arrived at the restaurant, Inaho found Nina a particularly interesting distraction, but only in the sense that he didn't understand why she was there at all. She had already sent regards in relation to his injuries, hadn't come with Rayet or Inko, hadn't mentioned coming at any point, and to be quite honest, she was more Inko's friend than his. Unless friend by association was more of a social norm than he expected, Nina didn't have much reason to have come, and wasted the money to do so. Perhaps she had been bored, or was particularly worried about Inko. It didn't make much sense to him regardless, and he found himself casually pondering the reasons over dinner. Thankfully, there were enough people at the table, that there was little to no need for him to actively participate in conversations. Most of their group - he and Rayet excluded - were social butterflies, and had no problem entertaining each other without his input. Yuki was also having an animated conversation with Rayet, so he wasn't even needed in that department. It was nice, and almost reminded him of the time before the war, where 'hanging out' consisted of his friends being social with one another, while he played on his phone, soaking up their companionship with occasional conversation or slight additions to existing conversations. It was nice.

That was generally how it went, until he looked up, and Nina was smiling at him, in that cute way that she often did. Nina liked being cute far more than any other girl he'd ever met, though he admitted readily that Inko was far cuter without trying. Nina cocked her head slightly to one side when he looked up and noticed her, and her smile didn't falter. "Did you take my advice?" She cooed over at him.

Inaho almost answered 'I never asked, nor received advice from you' but refrained from saying exactly that. He rephrased it. "In relation to what?" is what he answered instead.

Nina's mouth went into an oh shape, before Calm on his right butted into the conversation, much to Inaho's relief (though he didn't show it). "He did." Calm answered across the table to Nina, before turning back to him. "The message I sent back, that was Nina. I was going to reply after, and explain, but I thought I'd give you the chance to shoot down the idea first. You didn't reply though, and I sorta forgot." Calm shrugged and scratched his head sheepishly.

Inaho simply blinked at him a few times, before turning back to Nina. "Then yes. I did."

Nina's smile brightened. "Both of them?" She asked, her eyes almost sparkling.

This time, Inaho shook his head. "Your first suggestion has proved highly effective, but your second required some changes."

It was at that point that Inko moved her attention from Yuki and Rayet over to their conversation, a confused look on her face. Calm piped in to enlighten her. "Inaho asked me some strange question, and Nina suggested getting a pet." Calm then looked over at Nina again. "He got a kitten. You should see it, she's really cute!"

Inko quickly looked over at Nina, and beamed. "You suggested the kitten?"

Nina nodded softly. "I suggested a pet! Not exactly a kitten-" She turned to look over at Inaho for a second. "but I'm glad you decided on a cat." Her eyes settled on Inko again, before she continued talking. "My mom and me had a cat before the war. It really helped me adjust to Shinawara before I met you and everyone." She paused there, and her smile turned wistful. "I like to think he made it out of the bombardment, and that there are tons of little Coco's running around Japan right now!" Her smile seemed genuine, and her eyes twinkled.

"Animals are very resourceful." Inaho found himself saying, instead of how unrealistic Nina's speculations were. Both would have been true statements, but leaving things vague seemed to be the best option at that moment. Animals did tend to find ways on their own to survive. Though, he supposed that all animals had a high sense of self preservation, but that went without saying.

Inko, ever mindful of those around her, chimed in at that moment, but Inaho didn't miss the smile Nina gave him. "I've never had a cat before!" Inko said, gently resting her hand on Nina's shoulder. "Why don't we get one for the apartment? I've just adored Inaho's kitten! She's so cute and sweet and playful."

Nina nodded, a bright smile on her face. "Sure, we should! I'm sure we could get Rayet to agree too!" But before Inaho could object to Inko's incorrect wording, Nina was turning back to look at him inquisitively. "Is she your pet, Inaho? Calm was convinced it would be for you, but I thought it was for someone else."

Inaho spared a look over in Calm's direction, but he wasn't looking at them. His eyes were off looking at nothing, but he shrugged one shoulder. Inaho turned his attention back to Nina. "It isn't mine, though we would have kept it if my co-worker had declined the offer." 'Seriously declined,' he amended in his head. 'for rational reasons that he could explain.'

Nina frowned. "You mean you didn't ask first?"

Inaho could see Inko's eyes on him, but he could only guess at what that meant. Had she thought about asking him the same thing before he'd purchased the cat, and had simply refrained for some reason? It was a strange guess on his part, but the look on her face was strange, and he was having a hard time placing it. "He is very lonely, and hasn't taken the initiative to solve these problems himself." Inaho stated, his attention back on Nina.

"Oh" Nina said, her eyes also taking on a strange sort of look. Inko and Nina seemed to share that strange look for half a second, before both of them squarely turned back to look at him. This time, Nina smiled slightly, and shrugged her shoulders. "Okay. Well, hopefully he's a cat person then."

Inaho looked over towards Yuki for some sort of back up, but she and Rayet were talking together in hushed tones at the end of the table. Their expressions looked pensive and serious. Inaho hadn't thought anything of why she'd chosen not to sit next to him, but now his suspicion was peaked. As if sensing eyes on her, Yuki looked away from Rayet for a few seconds, and their eyes met. In that brief instance before her features softened, and she excused herself to the restroom, Inaho was positive she was up to something. A look at Rayet seemed to confirm it.

Maybe getting Yuki alone would have been a better idea after all...


End file.
